


Prelude to a Different But Still Traumatizing World

by HerenorThereNearnorFar



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe, Flashbacks, Gen, Unedited Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4472663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerenorThereNearnorFar/pseuds/HerenorThereNearnorFar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A speculative AU about Jocelyn getting of out Idris, plus baby Jonathan. The good old Jonathan Fray, a classic for a reason. Featuring fights with faeries, sibling bonding, angst on all accounts, and Simon stubbornly being a very good friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Adventures in the Park

**Author's Note:**

> So I moved this month and binge read the entirety of the Mortal Instrument Series. It was not my favourite but I liked the world building and overall it was an enjoyable read and there were enough fandom jokes to keep me suitably entertained. So obviously I wrote about 28,000 words of alternate universe fan-fiction about it. It is by no means of any quality but I wrote so much of it I want credit for it. So general forewarning, this is the first segment of a theoretical highly complicated AU that will never be written. So it cuts off awkwardly in addition to being entirely stress written and barely proofread. In conclusion, moving is tough kids, and sometimes you end up writing a third of a novel in between crying into your air mattress and packing winter coats for moves in mid July. Obviously as I've never written anything else for this and only read the books once it's of questionable quality.

“Absolutely not.” Jocelyn declared.

“Mom!” Clary called, the picture of a petulant twelve year old, mostly on account of being an actual petulant twelve year old. “I’ll be with Simon. We just want to go down to the park, there’s a concert. I know you’re working on a deadline, but we can go by ourselves.”

Jocelyn shook her head, red hair flying out of her loose ponytail and sticking to the berry red paint smeared across her cheek. “I said no. It’s too far and too late.”

Clary bit her lip and sighed, collapsed onto their little sofa. The boy across from her, bespectacled and somber for his age but visibly trying not to be, blinked. “What if we wait for Jonathan to get home, Mrs. Fray? It’ll only be like a half an hour, he can take us.”

The girl jumped on the idea. “You let him go places alone, Mom. Then there will be three of us. Please?”

“I don’t think-” Jocelyn started, staring determinedly at her easel which she had dragged into the kitchen so she could use the setting sun to help reference the background of her latest piece.

Clary interrupted her, “I mean, you trust him, don’t you?”

Her mother flinched, visibly checked herself, almost seemed defensive as she said, “Of course I do!”

Green eyes widened innocently. “Then we can go after he gets back from practice? We’ll only be a little late.” she assured her friend.

Jocelyn bit her lip and nodded. “You’ll wear your jackets, and be back by eight.” In winter that still meant dark and danger, and she’d be fretting all night.

Her usually conscientious daughter, her sweet easy child, didn’t seem to care much. She was too busy babbling about music to Simon, and listening to him babble back. Jocelyn already knew she was going to regret it. Luke was busy, urgent werewolf affairs taking him away, and it was too late in the year. Too close to when she took the children to Magnus. But here she was, letting her thirteen year old son take his little sister and her friend across the city at night to a concert.

Clary knew the one trick that always got under skin. It wasn’t very conducive to parenting.

Jonathan would take care of them, she tried to assure herself. Whatever else she thought of her first child, he was strong. She’d had to ban him from several sports- that she hadn’t wanted to let him play in the first place but somehow he had convinced her- because he was too rough. But he always found something new, always liked to be moving. She knew it was just how he was, but it worried her so much. Swimming had stuck, there wasn’t much damage he could do, and he had managed to control himself with Tai Chi and most lately fencing. She wasn’t sure how much longer fencing could last, but in the meantime he seemed primed to sweep the local meet next week.

He was so good at things. That worried her too and then she hated herself for worrying.

He wouldn’t hurt Clary though, that was the one thing she could trust. It was a small mercy.

Jocelyn glanced at her daughter, now settled on the couch with Simon, drawing and glancing eagerly at the door every few minutes. The sketchbook in her hands was just visible over the back of the couch and Jocelyn could see a familiar sweep of lines, shaping a face that wasn’t quite human, something she had seen and forgotten but might have dreamed about.

She needed to call Magnus, set up an appointment for some time next month.

In the meantime she considered cancelling the outing, knew Clary would hate her for it and couldn’t stand the idea of that this time.

Instead she found an excuse to lower the curfew to seven, school tomorrow, wouldn’t want to upset Simon’s mother. The children whined and Jocelyn glanced at her painting and tried to wish it away, tried to wish it wasn’t what she was predicating a large portion of the next month’s rent on.

She loved her children so much, despite everything, and sometimes it felt like they hated her for it. She could deal with hate if it meant that she could keep them, when she had been so close to losing them before.

 

 

_At the end of the day it had been a stroke of luck that had saved Jonathan for her. She and Luke had been so careful with their plans but she hadn’t expected to come home to a house in flames, in ashes, and her world coming apart at the seams even more._

_Her parents were dead and her home was gone and she was a widow._

_Jonathan, her child who she loved and hated in equal measures, loved for a memory and hated for reality, hated herself for loving and hated herself for hating, was right where she had left him, napping in Amatis Greymark’s guest room._

_Amatis had been so reluctantly helpful and Jocelyn had finally, grudgingly, asked that last favor of her, to let her leave Jonathan there that terrible day because Adele and Granville Fairchild didn’t know of her plans and might have done something rash. It had been such a simple thing, to drop a dark eyed baby off before sprinting to the Accords Hall because she was worried her mother and father might panic when the news came and it seemed safer to keep her family split up._

_She hadn’t expected, well, she wasn’t sure what she had expected but it wasn’t the embers of her childhood and the memory of a familiar-but so kind despite everything- face worriedly asking if he was a difficult baby. She had said no, because Jonathan never fussed and later had come in like a red haired specter of death and found him safe and sound and asleep. She had flinched when he opened his eyes and looked at her but she found she didn’t want him dead. That was something, that had to be something, and she leaned away from his face as they left Idris but she had left with him in her arms all the same._

 

_The first few months had been difficult. The girl who Jocelyn Fairchild had been had grown up in a big house with parents who adored her and lots of friends. There had always been food on the table and lots of room to run, never worries about heating or healthcare. Becoming Jocelyn Fray was like going into exile among strange people, bereft and alone._

_She was lucky, she had still family contacts and a few bits of jewelry and money she had been able to salvage. They kept her on her feet until she could establish herself a little as an artist. The pregnancy made things difficult but by the time Clary was born they were in a little apartment with enough light to paint by and room to keep Jonathan home._

_It would have been negligent to send him to daycare and so he stayed with her, a dark eyed, pale haired little shadow who learned how to walk and talk and flail and scream. The tantrums he had never had as an infant came easily to him once he realized that they would get him what he wanted._

_Jocelyn was almost certain that wasn’t how most children learned to cry._

_When Clary had been born, so small and sweet with hands that clung and unfocused eyes, who babbled and burbled and sobbed and acted like a baby was supposed to, she had been so scared._

_Jonathan had regarded his little sister coldly, and you could almost see the wheels clicking in his head._

_“Too small.” he had announced, looking at the red faced intruder sleeping soundly in the bassinet in the bedroom, next to his own crib._

_Their neighbor at the time, a grandmotherly older woman who had taken it upon herself to be Jocelyn’s angel, had smiled and babysat and asked her midwife daughter in law over so Jocelyn wouldn’t have to go to the mundane hospital and leave Jonathan with someone, who was now helping sort baby clothes, had smiled. “She’ll get bigger, lamb.”_

_Jocelyn had watched from the bed, still too exhausted to move, as Jonathan clambered with more grace than a toddler should have had, to peer again over the edge of the cradle and someone had to do something._

_“Jonathan sweetheart, come over here.” Jocelyn had said, trying to speak around her heart, which had made the migration to her throat with commendable speed._

_The boy had given the baby one more long stare before obediently running over to the bed and sitting in front of Jocelyn. Still sore and shaking she had drawn him in close, run her fingers through his hair- still so much like Valentine’s that she had to close her eyes- and wished that she had called someone to help. Mrs. Haile was a blessing, especially since Jocelyn hadn’t trusted the mundane hospitals. She knew some warlocks worked medically and her face was still too recognizable. She still wished for her mother, or her friends. Someone to hold her hand and tell her everything would be all right, to hold her baby, six hours old and already sleeping in a cradle._

_Jonathan had been adored, by his father and his grandparents and the Circle. Clary would have none of that._

_Something must have shown on her face because Mrs. Haile came over and patted her hand. “You’ll be fine Jocelyn. Are you sure there isn’t anyone I can call for you?”_

_Jocelyn had assured her that there wasn’t, that she could stay alone tonight and thank you so much for everything._

_She had gotten up and fed the baby and given Jonathan some tasteless rice crackers, just to prove that she could manage on her own, and had finally been left in a late afternoon apartment. Mrs. Haile had been reluctant, because it was probably some level of illegal to leave a woman who had just given birth home alone with two babies, but she had left and the silence had been gentle as a tisane._

_Jonathan had never slept easily but he was content to sit quietly and play in his crib when he wasn’t asleep so Jocelyn had put him down early with a bottle and a pile of much abused toys, including the cow whose head had at one point been ripped off so he could play with the stuffing and the caterpillar which had played music until he had thrown it at the wall hard enough to break it. Her baby, her Clarissa, had nursed and then dozed against the curve of Jocelyn’s body. She hadn’t expected to drift off herself, but the events of the day had worn her out._

_She certainly hadn’t expected to be woken up an hour or so later, when the sky had settled into a indigo lit by the dual glow of an early moon and the setting sun, by a small voice calling, “Mommy?”_

_Jocelyn stirred, and then started when she felt a small hand against her side. One of her arms snaked around Clary protectively as she turned to see Jonathan sitting on his feet a few inches away. She had no idea how he had gotten out of his crib and didn’t want to think about it._

_“Is something wrong?” she said her voice thin._

_The hand rested on her arm now and Jonathan looked contemplative, his chubby baby face blank as it ever was and his eyes intent. “Sleep with mommy?” he complained and Jocelyn swallowed. He’d always had a crib, even for the first few days when they were still with Luke and didn’t really didn’t have the space for it in their hotel room._

_“You’re a little big for that.” she deflected._

_Jonathan’s expression grew sullen. “No.” he insisted. “‘M a baby.”_

_As if to demonstrate he burrowed into her side, a rare sign of physical affection from him. He’d accept her hesitant hugs and shaky caresses and would turn to her as a touchstone in a world too big for him, but he had never jumped for cuddles or clung like other children she saw._

_Jocelyn didn’t know how to say no and she lay on her back and transferred Clary to her stomach, securing her with one arm. The other she wrapped around Jonathan, trying to keep some distance between her children._

_Maybe it was jealousy, or self-preservation, or some childish scheme- because no matter how unsettling Jonathan could be at times he’d never given her any reason to believe he was anything more than an exceedingly strong and clever one year old with behavioral issues. Still, it felt gratifying to know that Jonathan wanted her affection, felt upstaged by the new baby._

_She instantly felt guilty for that._

_There was a lot to do over the next days, work, money, checkups to be done, paperwork to file because mundanes were very insistent about that. She had slept lightly, the twin weight and warmth of her children heavy on her skin and her mind, the idea of disaster imminent._

_When he slept next to her Jonathan had seemed softer. His breath a steady susurration, his hair a fine fluff that swayed in the summer breeze, his long eyelashes kissing cheekbones that promised to be quite impressive when he was older, he didn’t look quite as much like Valentine, didn’t look quite as much a monster._

_It had been a start._

“Come on!” Clary called, pulling Simon after her into the subway station. Jonathan had wandered ahead, seemingly unconcerned if the kids could keep up with him but notably never completely disappearing from sight.

“He doesn’t know what line we’re taking.” Simon argued, running alongside her as they weaved through the crowds.

Clary rolled her eyes. “Jonathan knows how the subway works. And if we don’t move fast we’re going to get there and then have to leave right away. Why does my mom have to be so careful? Nobody is going to try to take a starving artist’s kids for ransom.”

The crowd thickened as they stumbled into the station and Clary looked around with sudden dismay.

A hand landed on her shoulder. “I think she’s more worried about you getting murdered by lunatic or kidnapped by cultists, or, god forbid, learning bad New York habits like dressing nicely.” said a voice. “And she’s worried about me murdering someone, obviously.”

Her small freckled nose screwed up as she glared at her brother. “Don’t jump out at people like that. We know you can stalk like a jungle cat but you don’t have to demonstrate it.”

“All that stealth and somehow no subtlety.” Simon muttered, making Clary giggle.

Jonathan Fray pulled a face. “Come on, brats. We don’t want to miss your concert.”

“It started two minutes ago.” Clary informed him as she was herded into the subway car. “Because you were late.”

“Apologies for having a life, baby sister.” Jonathan said. Clary and Simon managed to squeeze into the one free seat and he stood in front of them, a bit menacing. His recent growth spurt had made him even more gangly but with his coloring it somehow made him look eerie rather than teenage awkward.

“How was practice, Errol Flynn?” Simon said, hoping to prevent another Fray sibling argument, which -while usually good natured- could get tired fast.

A shrug, and that was classic teenager. Jonathan braced himself against a railing and looked out the window, as if there was something other than darkness and pipes out there. “It was fine. I nearly took out some idiot’s eye because he wasn’t wearing his gear correctly; would have served him right. Then we-” The monotone monologue stopped dead, dark eyes following a point on the subway wall, his head turning to watch it disappear.

Simon craned his head but couldn’t see anything. Clary, noting the silence, looked up from her lap where she was drawing a scaled pattern over her skin.

“What is it?” Simon finally asked anxiously.

Jonathan blinked. “Nothing. I just, it looked like something weird for a minute there.”

“I think it’s that head cold we had last month sticking around.” Clary volunteered, pulling Simon’s hand over so she could decorate it too. “I keep seeing stuff in the corner of my eye. Either that or we’re both going crazy- in your case crazier.”

“It probably has something to do with sinuses or whatever.” Simon agreed quickly. He liked Clary, and even Jonathan, but they could get a little weird sometimes. Not good weird either, staring into space and at one point getting into a fight with someone who wasn’t there weird. But that had been a couple of years ago. Besides, it didn’t matter how weird they were or how many people Jonathan punched, they were closer than almost anyone else. A few hallucinations couldn’t erase that.

Clary returned her attention to inking something in ball point pen on Simon’s hand and he leaned his head against her shoulder. Jonathan huffed but didn’t push the topic or make a snappy retort. His cold gaze swept over the car and he noted. “Our stop is next. Don’t think I won’t leave you two on the train if you aren’t quick enough.”

With a hum of delight Clary finally relinquished her friend’s hand. Simon looked at the symbol drawn on it in confusion. “What is it?”

“It’s just pretty, don’t think too much into it.” She stood. “Come on, if my brother abandons us he’ll get in so much trouble and then we won’t have anyone to take us places.”

“And your true motives are revealed.” Jonathan said dryly. “Here I thought you loved me.”

“I do.” Clary said with the blunt honesty of a child. “Being old enough to take us out at night is just a bonus.”

“The many delights of being in the inner circle of Jonathan Fray.” Simon intoned. “Contacts with all his probably drug dealer friends, being able to walk down any street at night, seats at really long swim meets…”

A hand closed over his collar but Simon didn’t flinch. He wasn’t scared of Jonathan, not really. A slightly gentler grip closed over the back of Clary’s shirt and they were both carried out of the subway car, despite the fact that Jonathan wasn’t that much bigger than they were.

“I wasn’t nearly as mouthy as you two when I was your age.”

Clary didn’t tug away like Simon did once they hit the tile of the subway station. “Last year?” she sniped, smiling up at her brother.

As the Frays bantered Simon looked at his hand. The simple symbol really was pretty, if a little strange. Familiar as well. He thought... Clary had drawn something on his Science folder when they were in fourth grade. Her mom had given him a new one, with superheroes on it, had taken the one Clary had drawn on.

Weird but he got good things out of it- long talks and adventures chaperoned by a boy who had gotten expelled from kindergarten for biting another kid’s finger off, summers playing at the farm and winters curled up in Clary’s bed listening to music, a best friend- story of his relationship with them, really.

Clary caught his hand as she and her brother passed by, something they might have been embarrassed by at school but were still young enough to get away with in public. As they walked Jonathan kept looking away from them, as if constantly searching for something that wasn’t there.

 

Jocelyn couldn’t paint a stroke after they left and sat in front of the canvas staring blankly until Luke came in.

Then she forced a smile, and found that when he returned it, the smile stopped being so forced.

“Something wrong?” he asked, adjusting his glasses.

Jocelyn started mixing a rich gold, desperate for something to do with her hands. “Clary and Simon went out. Jonathan went with them. I’m just worrying too much. How did werewolf politics go?”

“Good, fine. I just volunteered to act as a mediator for a little dispute; they managed to clear it up between themselves quickly.” Luke looked at her, his eyes catching every detail of her face. He could always parse her out, at least when it came to simple things. “You’re worried. They’ll be fine; they’re smart kids, just a little stubborn sometimes.” His voice was fond and Jocelyn’s heart ached.

“I know.” she said. “It’s just that Clary has been drawing again. Jonathan too. But it’s too early for the spell to be breaking. We have at least a month.” It sounded like a desperate reassurance.

“Maybe they saw it somewhere.” Luke suggested and then seeing the look on Jocelyn’s face amended it. “If you didn’t manage to clear out their old sketchbooks. Angel knows a few years ago they were scratching it everywhere. We’ll just make the appointment with Magnus a few weeks early, just in case.”

Jocelyn smiled ruefully. “You think I’m just fussing don’t you?”

“I think you want them to be as safe as possible. And that is nothing but admirable.” He grinned. “Is Simon staying the night again?”

“I already cleared it with Elaine.” Jocelyn confirmed. “And since I’m not getting any more work done on this painting tonight it’s probably better to get out the sleeping bag now.”

Luke nodded. “I don’t know why you haven’t just caved and gotten another bed. Or adopted him. It would make things much less stressful.”

“And encourage them?” her voice was muffled as she went over to the closet. “Have you eaten yet?” The invitation was clear.

“No.” he called back. “Want me to make something?”

At the affirmative sound he started rifling through the fridge. In the years since they had met again, since Jocelyn had agreed to let him stay and be a part of their life, it had been easy to fall back into the routines of friendship, altered a little to account for the fact that they weren’t children any more and there was no Valentine between them any more.

Just his children, and Clary and Jonathan were a welcome burden.

He found himself worrying despite himself. Lots of New York children went out alone at twelve, especially when they had a group with them. But Clary and Jonathan weren’t most New York children. All it would take was one person with the right knowledge looking at them too closely, one person- or other being- who had seen Jocelyn or Valentine making the connection. They looked so much like their parents, and Valentine had been very recognizable by the end.

They could get killed. Luke breathed deeply, and poked the chicken breasts he had found. “Jocelyn! Do you have any lemon juice?”

Seconds ticked by with no reply but silence and he nearly knocked over the kitchen table running over to the children’s room.

Jocelyn was safe, alive, whole and breathing, kneeling on the floor by Jonathan’s bed and holding one of his sketchbooks. He didn’t draw like his sister did, as easily as breathing, and he was much more private about it, but he did draw. Jocelyn had confided in him that when the children were young it had been one of the best ways to keep them occupied while she worked, and one of the best ways she had found to make herself spend time with her son.

The pages of the book were covered in clean lines, thick smooth strokes of ink curving out like calligraphy, painting stark scenes of horror and crisp portraits of things that weren’t quite human and familiar symbols that still traced in silver threads and tattered, faded scraps the curves of Jocelyn’s skin. Over and over and over again, too often to be a mere mistake or idle thought.

“I wanted to check.” Jocelyn explained shutting the book with a snap. “This is a new one; he’s only had it for a few weeks.”

A curtain divided the big, by New York standards, room that the siblings shared. As one the two of them pushed through to Clary’s side of the room, found the closest of her sketchbooks and flipped through it urgently. She wasn’t quite as bad as her brother was, but rough sketches in the corners of pages bore testament to disaster.

Luke took a breath in and it sounded like a hiss. “I’ll call Magnus.”

“I’ll call Elaine, tell her the children are sick again and that Simon can’t stay over.” Jocelyn agreed.

“We can get a cab to the park.” Luke finished.

Jocelyn tugged at her hair. “I’m never letting them outside again.”

 

_She hadn’t been able to help herself, she had started cry when she got the phone call. It had all been going so well. Jonathan was not an easy child but he could behave himself and she had weighed the costs and benefits and allowed him to go to school. Homeschooling had been too much, with Clary and her work, so her oldest had been packed off to kindergarten with a bagged lunch and a backpack full of large sized crayons._

_It had taken a month before someone ended up in the hospital._

_She had just started to let her guard down too. She had started him in spring when the school year was nearly over, because it meant he was six and maybe a little more capable of managing and because that had been when her work had picked up to the point that it had started to seem like a good idea. The first few weeks had been nervous, she had picked him up every day and made a point to stay and talk a little with his teacher a few times. Ms. Kitching had assured however that Jonathan was just quiet and otherwise very well behaved. Jocelyn had almost started to believe that things could go well._

_Instead she’d had to bundle Clary up and take a cab down to the school and try to look like a responsible parent as the principal explained to her what had happened._

_“I haven’t had the full story myself Mrs. Fray.” the older lady had said, after the bare bones of the tale were laid out. “But it seems like there was some sort of argument that turned violent.”_

_“Is the other child all right?” Jocelyn had asked._

_“Fortunately. The paramedics got everything under control and we’re assured she’ll make a full recovery. Still… it is a very difficult situation.”_

_“I understand.” Jocelyn said. “And I am so sorry. Jonathan has always had some issues but I never thought anyone would get hurt.” she lied. She had thought, had worried every day, had gambled and now a child was hurt. “I’ll take him out of school, find some way to homeschool.”_

_The principal had looked alarmed. “I’m not sure there’s any need for that. Clearly something has to be done, and I would suggest you change schools, maybe find a private one, but it was an accident. Children don’t know their own strength. A good behavioral therapist is what he really needs; I have a few suggestions...”_

_Jocelyn had nodded agreeably, silently thinking that there was no way a behavioral therapist would work out with Jonathan, that there was no way she was letting even a mundane try to poke around in his head when Magnus had worked so hard to make sure it was safe. “Yes, yes. But still, I think it would be best if I pulled him out of school for a few years, until he’s a little more mature.”_

_Something about her must have looked pathetic, a paint streaked single mother carrying a still bleary from being woken up from her nap four year old, discussing how to best handle her six year old’s apparent tendency to bite off the minor appendages of his peers. The principal looked even more sympathetic than before, and she had a face made for pitying people. “I’ve found in these cases having contact with other children can be a positive experience, provided it’s controlled. No child learns social behaviour on their own. By all accounts he’s a very bright boy, he’d no doubt be fine homeschooler, but it would probably be best to set him up with a play group. And I have a few lists of therapists here.”_

_Clary had stirred her head from Jocelyn’s shoulder then with a sleep creaky cry of, “Mommy? Jonathan?”_

_“We’re going to go get your brother, Clary.” Jocelyn had soothed, taking the papers and shoving them in her bag. She smiled at the principal. “You said he was in the nurse’s office?_

_“Yes, it didn’t look like he sustained any major injuries but it seemed like the best place for him while we got the other children calmed down. I can take you down right now. You brought a spare change of clothes?” Jocelyn nodded, she had been distraught but Nephilim were trained to keep a cool head in a crisis and she had heard that part of the phone call._

_She wondered how much blood there had been. Probably not a lot given how small children’s hands could be, she had estimated, but still enough to warrant a full new outfit._

_Jonathan had been sitting in a chair too big for him in one of the small examination rooms off the main reception area. It was a big school that catered to children up to the sixth grade; he seemed very small next to the small handful of eight and ten year olds waiting outside with bruises and headaches._

_He had also been absolutely covered in blood. Jocelyn had underestimated then. She had sat Clary down outside under the supervision of the nurse and silently helped Jonathan change into his clean clothes. It looked like there had been blood on his face too, but someone had wiped it away. They hadn’t been able to get it out of his mouth though and when he finally had spoken there was a pinkish tinge to his pearly white baby teeth._

_“Sorry, Mommy.” he had said, sounding suitably contrite._

_She had barely been able to put together words and when she finally could speak they sounded hollow. “That was a very bad thing, Jonathan. A very bad thing.”_

_“I said sorry.”_

_Jocelyn had pressed her eyes shut until light danced against darkness in her vision and all she could feel was the cold floor and Jonathan’s small, warm wrists in her hands. “We’re going home now, Jonathan. But I am very sad about what you did.” she managed after some time. Jonathan had clung to the leg of her jeans as she had went back outside to pick up Clary, who had muzzily reached down to pat her brother’s head before burying her face back into Jocelyn’s shoulder._

_The principal had talked about a few more things, made a few more suggestions, and Jocelyn had only been able to nod and give the woman more of her contact information so she could stay informed about what was happening and make arrangements to pull Jonathan out of school. Clary had slowly given up on returning to her nap and had been antsy by the time that they left. Jonathan hadn’t said a word since they left the nurse’s office, but he let Clary hold his hand on the way out of the school with the fond indulgence that had finally prompted Jocelyn to start hesitantly leaving them alone in the same room two years before._

_The children’s relative silence was a blessing. Jocelyn had felt like she was going to break apart but by the time they had returned to the apartment she had rebuilt herself._

_Almost all Nephilim children learned at home when they were young. She didn’t want her children to be Nephilim but you couldn’t change blood, maybe they just weren’t suited for school._

_Using they instead of acknowledging that Clary would probably have been a perfectly average student made it easier._

_Jonathan had eaten his lunch with some trepidation while Clary had carefully and deliberately smeared mac and cheese over her arms and threaded noodles through her hair, more mature than the idle mess making of her earlier years but ultimately just as messy. “I had a lunch packed.” he said and Jocelyn had made herself smile._

_“Well, now you’re at home.”_

_“I can put it in the fridge and eat it tomorrow.” he had offered, surprisingly sweetly until she remembered there had been a ketchup sandwich in there. Jonathan never liked sugared things but he liked ketchup. It made her stomach turn to see him eating everything dripping crimson._

_“You’re not going to school tomorrow. You’re going to stay home with Clary and me from now on.”_

_He hadn’t fought it, hadn’t argued, just nodded and offered Clary a bite of his food since most of hers was artistically scattered through her baby curls. Jocelyn’s hair had been straight and baby fine when she was a child, but Valentine’s had been curly, she had seen the pictures. Honestly, he had looked like a more human child than Jonathan did._

_Jonathan had always been bright, had always taken to things quickly. Teaching him was easy and the next year when Clary kicked and fought and screamed to be allowed to stay home with her brother she had been easy to teach as well._

_She had been shocked when Jonathan had come up and asked to be allowed to go back to school for second grade._

_“Clary doesn’t like staying home, not really. And her new friend Simon goes to school, she wants to go with him.” he had explained, blank faced and then more softly. “I’ll be nice, I won’t hurt anyone.”_

_“Will you be happy there?” she had asked, before she realized what she was doing._

_Jonathan had stared at her as if she had asked a stupid question._

_Jocelyn had allowed it. There had been more trips to the principal's office, but none to the same degree as the first._

_Whatever he was, her son kept his promises._

The concert in the park was more crowded than they had expected. It wasn’t a very popular band but Simon and Clary underestimated how much people liked a show. The shoved through the crowd, taking equal advantage of their size and Jonathan’s unsettling looks to make their way to the front, where a young woman Simon happily identified as the keyboardist was adding her voice to a soft duet with a tall slim man whose features unsettled Clary for some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“They probably opened with their best songs.” her friend complained.

Clary nudged him. “Look, that guitar player you really like is doing something in the wings, he’ll probably be on next song.”

“Yeah, I know.” he sighed and arched up to get a better look at the stage. It was possible that they had weaseled their way a little too far into the front.

Jonathan was frowning. “This music is weird.” he said, too loudly. Clary had serious concerns about her brother’s lack of boundaries sometimes. It wasn’t even that he didn’t know how to act right, he just didn’t care sometimes.

“It’s a little old fashioned.” Simon defended in a much more appropriate whisper. “But their technique is great and they write really cool lyrics.”

They were both cut off by Simon’s guitar crush slipping into the song with a smooth strumming. Clary elbowed him again and muttered, “We should have brought flowers so you could throw them at him.”

He grinned. “Do you think roses are too forward?”

They both dissolved into quiet laughter, a little wired on being out on an early winter night without adult supervision- Jonathan didn’t count- doing something they enjoyed.

The music wasn’t entirely the style the two of them usually favored but it was really good. There was an unearthly quality to it, but it somehow reminded Clary of summers at the farm and playing with her brother as a child, or even of her mother’s paintings and the velvety silent feeling of Luke’s bookshop. Ethereal, but homey.

If she hadn’t been too old for it she might have said it reminded her of magic.

It took Jonathan approximately an hour to get bored and wander off, despite Clary and Simon’s best efforts to get rid of him. They were smart enough to stick together, they knew they would be fine together, but for some reason he refused to budge until a bright eyed pretty girl, maybe a year or two older than him but still young, tugged him away to another little circle of young people, some significantly more oddly dressed than the others in a corner. Which left her Simon alone to actually appreciate the music without the cranky remarks, a true relief.

The music was getting quicker and sharper, which she didn’t think was the traditional pattern of concerts, but it worked. The eclectic crowd, an assortment of teens and twenty somethings in the middle, but also joggers and commuters hovering around the edges, swayed slightly to the beat. A few people were flat out dancing. Clary couldn’t quite get into it, something about the corners of the tune set her teeth on edge. The performers weren’t helping either, no matter how hard she tried to actually watch it felt like her eyes kept slipping away.

Her brother appeared at her shoulder, grabbed her hand and then Simon’s. He didn’t look uneasy, Jonathan never looked uneasy, he was never scared, but Clary thought he might have looked a bit concerned. “We should leave.”

“What?” she yelled over the din of delight and drums. “No, we just got here, and Mom barely let us come. We are not quitting.”

“These people literally wrote songs about fairies.” Simon said with a frown that made him look about seven. “Unless you are deathly afraid of Tinker Bell this isn’t exactly a danger zone.”

Jonathan snarled. “I don’t like it. We’re leaving.”

Simon quieted because that look on Jonathan’s face usually shut people up but Clary was unruffled. She tried to tug her hand away, found that she couldn’t, and scowled instead. “Ten more minutes.”

“Not a chance, little sister.” he replied absently, and started to pull the two of them away, to some generally suspicious looks.

“If I scream everyone will think you’re kidnapping us.” Clary threatened, well onto last desperate measures. Even as she said it she realized it was out of line. Jonathan turned on her, and she tried to look apologetic. “Sorry.”

“Yeah.” he returned, about as snappy as a pillow, and Clary realized something must have really upset him, by Jonathan standards. She let herself be dragged away, her brother was one of the only people she would admit defeat to.

One of the girls who had stolen Jonathan off earlier appeared in front of them, as if coalescing from thin air or melting out of the shadows. Her lips were blue, not like lipstick but like dead flesh. Her eyes skimmed right over Simon and Clary and focused on Jonathan. Her voice sounded like wind chimes, random and ever so slightly discordant. “Are you leaving? You should stay.”

“Sorry to disappoint. I have a bedtime, on account of being thirteen.”

The girl looked a little startled, people often pegged Jonathan as older than he was because he was tall and never fazed, the same way they saw Clary and Simon as younger, as if a small frame and still full cheeks actually determined maturity. The shock passed quickly and she shrugged it off. “So? Just stay and listen. We came all this way; we almost never come to cities.”

This was true, one of the reasons Clary and Simon had been so desperate was because they knew the chances of another gig by this band in Brooklyn before they were ninety were slim.

One pale hand, elegant despite the chipped silver nail polish was held out, invitingly. Clary’s hand was gripped even harder and to her left she could see Simon wince.

“While I admire your dedication to pressuring minors.” Jonathan said, softly enough that anyone who didn’t know him wouldn’t know how close he was to losing control. “We’re going. Please move.”

Odd lights flickered in the girl’s eyes, and her skin was sallow. She looked like someone seen underwater, and the rest of the scene was blurring to match. Blinking, Clary tried to rub at her eyes with the heel of her free hand, trying to make the not quite right shapes in the corners of her vision go away. When she opened them again things were much clearer, the man on the stage was merely pretty and the tall man lounging by a tree no longer had antlers. Also the girl had not moved from in front of them and was frowning thoughtfully.

“You keep looking at Iason.” she started. “Who are y-”

Jonathan let go of Simon’s hand and punched her.

 

 

Jocelyn and Luke got a cab, it was easier and meant that they didn’t have to deal with crowds while dragging the children back, kicking and screaming if necessary.  
“Which park did you say?” asked Luke as they slid in without the usual bumped heads and awkward limbs that would accompany such a swift movement. The advantages of being a Shadowhunter and a Downworlder, respectively.

“Brooklyn Bridge Park.” Jocelyn said quickly with a nod to the driver then explained further to Luke, “A performance by one of the bands they like, Free Socks. Perfectly mundane, but you know who the parks can pick up.”

Her best and oldest friend did not look reassured. “Brooklyn Bridge?”

Luke had never been the type to panic easily and when he started to look worried she found herself worried too. “Is something wrong?”

“A few of the others,” And here others was clearly clever code for werewolves designed not to freak out the poor cabbie, “Were talking about the Fair Folk holding an event near the Brooklyn Bridge.” he explained, eyes going wide with worry behind his glasses then narrowing in calculation. “It might have been yesterday, or tomorrow, but I don’t think so.”

Jocelyn’s heart skipped a beat. “They are so dead.” she hissed, in a clear demonstration of the rare principle of Schrödinger's figurative language, where you don’t know if it’s literal or not until you open the box.

 

 

It turned out strange girls did not appreciate being hit and neither did their giggling friends. Or the tall guy leaning against the tree, whose head was starting to twist into odd shapes again. Or the bulky woman on a bench, who had been on a bench and was now standing menacingly. Clary Fray would pursue something she wanted through hell or high water, as several teachers had learned, but even she considered this a situation where backing down was a viable and admirable option.

Jonathan didn’t exactly back down but he did snatch Simon’s hand back up-over muted protests that they were not seven anymore-and started to pull them both away which was something of a relief. Clary couldn’t bring herself to think about the concert, despite the fact that it had been the hard won result of a lot of arguing and a fair bit of lying on their parts. She just wanted to go home.

The crowd seemed to be closing in, the normal people, the bouncy teens and middle aged hippies wandering off to be replaced with people who looked the same but felt different. The tall guy had relocated to glare at them at a much less comfortable distance.

Jonathan looked on the brink of hitting someone else and his hand was too tight around Clary’s as they were forced to stop or deal with the almost strategic lines of people boxing them in. It made her want to hit someone too.

Blue lipped girl recovered quickly and straightened herself with a hair toss that caught the light as if she had woven spider webs into her braids, all too fine and glinting in strange ways. One of her friends, tiny with big silvery eyes caught her elbow. “Mayhap we should leave them be, they’re just human children and we said we wouldn’t make a scene.”

“They aren’t acting it.” Blue lipped girl bit out.

The tall man nodded, “We can’t leave precedence for the others to sneak around at our revels. Go back to dancing, if you will, don’t waste the night we have. But I would have answers out of the young ones for their behavior.”

Another one of the figures, Clary was having trouble discerning them when their features kept jumping in and out of focus, proffered, “Maybe they’re with pack?”

“Puppies whose elders need to watch them better?” the girl scoffed. “Somehow I don’t believe it. Too young and too ill mannered, even for them.”

Clary could tell Simon had had enough before he even spoke, sharply and calmly enough to believe he wasn’t scared. “We’re not with any gangs. We don’t want to reenact any West Side Story dance offs with people wearing Mr. Spock ears.” Clary was more than a little startled that someone else could see their slightly pointed ears, but they had gotten much clearer since the little group had closed around them. Maybe she wasn’t hallucinating and this was just a bunch of confrontation prone people with an interesting choice in fashion and fake ears. Caught up in thought she missed Simon’s next few sentences, only tuning back in to catch him finishing with, “...We are just getting dragged home because some people are paranoid. Can we please go before anyone other than the actual musicians breaks into song or there are any casualties because this is my favorite shirt.”

It was a shirt Clary had gotten him for his last birthday, covered in pictures of old school Spider Man comic panels, where the shading was done with dots and everyone dressed like people out of the sixties, due to having been drawn in the sixties.

A look of mild amusement had spread over the tall guy’s face. “You wish no quarrel with us?”

Clary wasn’t sure that was entirely accurate, but she did want to leave.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Jonathan said with a curl of his lip, because he didn’t know how to shut up when he was ahead. It was one thing to think something and another thing to say it. He was older, he was supposed to know better.

Blue lips curled and a few of the more violent figures took steps forward. The tall guy suddenly looked like a voice of reason as he said. “Now, let’s not be hasty.”

“Please don’t.” said Luke from the edges of the little huddle. The people, and there weren’t really that many of them, Clary realized, maybe a dozen, parted to let him through. “I don’t know why picking fights with teenagers looked like a good idea to you and I don’t really want to know why. Drop it right now and I’ll pretend it never happened.”

One of the figure drew in a sudden breath. “Garroway? Are they yours?”

“No, they are not.” Luke said.

Jonathan of course had to immediately follow it up with, “Dad! How could you?” Clary shoved into him with all her might in a silent plea to stop talking because it was just making the hallucinations worse, but she still laughed. It was mean, Jonathan only called Luke ‘Dad’ to be mean, but it was also a much needed breath of normalcy.

Luke rolled his eyes. He usually had a good sense of humor, was a fun avuncular sort of figure, but he always winced when Jonathan made that joke and he didn’t exactly seem in a jovial base mood to start with. “Your mother is waiting for you in a cab. Straight forward. Go, now. I’ll deal with this.”

Her brother was still low-key gawking at everyone and Simon still looked deeply confused, which left Clary to be the proactive one. The other two trailed after her like they were the foam things on a pool lane line getting pulled in for the night. Clary had stayed after Jonathan’s swim meets and watched them tidy up before, yanking ropes of bobbing red and white which would sway in the water but eventually fall into line. Connected by thin arms and grasping hands her brother and her best friend followed her, a little haphazardly but with the same goal.

She could hear Luke’s reassuring voice behind her but couldn’t make out any words. She half wanted to listen, to figure out what was going on, but decided it would be better to ask her mother.

Her mother who was waiting in the cab and was probably furious. That was almost enough to make her pause but she wanted answers and she wanted reassurance.

Jocelyn was in fact in front of the curb, stand and watching worriedly. The second she saw the three of them she was moving, those long slender hands she shared with Jonathan fluttering to catch each of their faces in turn, even Simon’s, checking if they were alright. Once that was assured she remanded herself to a distance and looked stern. “Free Socks?”

It had been a little lie, when they had heard about the impromptu performance Clary had known her mother was more likely to spring for it if it was a band she already knew. On the lie color scale it was a solid ivory, harmless. It didn’t seem so harmless now.

Jocelyn steamrolled ahead. “I am very disappointed in you, Clary, for lying to me. Simon, you knew she was lying and you didn’t tell me. I can’t possibly let you come over if I can’t tell your mother with a straight face that I can keep you safe. Jonathan…” she had that look on her face that she got sometimes when looking at Clary’s brother. Betrayed and scared and angry, all at once, and not even disappointed any more, just resigned. It could even make Jonathan distraught, until he was lashing out with sharp words and even sharper blows at anyone who crossed him.

Jocelyn shook her head. “Get in the cab. As soon as Luke comes back we’re taking Simon home.”

There had clearly been some planning in the choice of transportation; it was big enough for all of them. Jonathan tried to shake free of them now that danger was past but Clary clung and a detached Simon swung around to her side until they were just in a slightly different configuration. Clary in the middle they clambered into the three seat back row of the clunky cab.

Looking back she could still see the muted lights and hear the dim music. She didn’t know how to say what she wanted to. ‘Mom I’m seeing weird things and Jonathan is too’ didn’t seem likely to work out.

“Mom. At that concert there were these people and they looked-”

Jocelyn, waiting outside for Luke, had leaned in the sliding door of vehicle at her first word. Even in the terrible lighting Clary thought she could see panic on her face. “Clarissa. I’m not sure I can talk to you now. Wait until we take Simon home, please.” It was a crisp parental shutdown, delivered accurately and precisely to divert yelling matches until the unaffiliated party was gone. Clearly Jocelyn didn’t want to yell at them with Simon around, though she’d been harsh in similar situations before. Usually Clary wasn't going to complain about anything that saved her a bit of embarrassment but she would have killed for answers at just that moment.

She leaned into Jonathan and he let her and once they had both ascertained that their mother had returned to fussily scanning the area for her oldest friend Clary whispered, “All the weird stuff earlier, did you see it?”

He nodded, “And maybe more, I think.”

Clary poked Simon until he reluctantly offered his hand. A ball point pen was highly useful when it came to inking out a quick question, ‘What did those people back there look like?’

Her friend made the generally accepted sign language for I don’t know, and accompanied it with a very verbose face but eventually accepted the pen and wrote back to her on her own hand words squished small enough as to be hardly visible in the dim light, ‘I don’t know. Just people. Little heavy on the makeup, and it seemed like a few of them had pointed ears for a bit. And no, I don’t think now is a good time to ask your mom if you can start wearing green lip gloss.’

He had clearly seen something then but based on his nonchalance it probably wasn’t nearly as extreme as what Clary had thought she’d seen.

The cab driver was starting to look impatient as Luke jogged up and had a prompt whisper session with Jocelyn before they both climbed back into the cab and gave the cabbie the instructions to Simon’s house.

The ride was blessedly silent.


	2. The Joys of Growing Up (And Refusing Too)

Surprisingly the silence even lasted after Simon was dropped off with his family. Clary had been slightly shocked to hear her mother telling Elaine Lewis that Jonathan and Clary were a bit peaky and she didn’t want Simon to catch anything. Her mother didn’t lie, or at least that was what she had thought.

Day time during Brooklyn winters extended after the sun had actually set. Combined with the “City That Never Sleeps” factor, the streets were still crowded. Jocelyn was perched on the fold down seat across from Jonathan and Clary, Luke next to her.

They weren’t going home, Clary realized.

“This isn’t where our home is.” she observed because stating a fact seemed preferable to asking a question.

Jocelyn nodded tersely. “We’re going to a friend’s really quickly. Luke needs to pick something up.”

“But it’s late.” Jonathan said. “Clary should be in bed by now. I did not think we would be punished by being taken out after our curfew.”

Luke’s grin looked rather forced. “Believe it or not, kid, the world does not revolve around you. You lie to your mother, you have to cope with the consequences, including being taken along on errands.” Luke didn’t lie either, he was the shamelessly kind and honest sort of person everyone wanted to be around. It certainly sounded like he was lying, just based on the way Jonathan tensed next to her.

Their mother had a cool stare that reminded Clary of ladies in historical movies Mrs Lewis liked to watch sometimes. Neither of them said a thing until the cab slid to a halt in a Brooklyn street not unlike any others. A little grimier maybe, not the best part of town but not the worst either.

Luke crouched to open the door and held out a hand to Clary. “Why don’t you come with me?”

He was always nice like that, offering her a way out of being stuck with her mother. Still, Clary didn’t enjoy the idea of leaving Jocelyn and Jonathan alone. Mom loved him, she did, she had to, but it was hard to tell sometimes.

“Can we talk?” Clary asked, because she still had so many questions about the people and why they had recognized Luke.

“Of course.” he promised with a glance to Jocelyn.

She took his hand.

 

 

 

_“Head count.” Luke had said, one late autumn afternoon when Clary was eight and Jonathan was nine. “One, two Frays. And one Lewis, who nonetheless gets honorary Fray status. Good.” He had such a goofy face on as he did it that Clary had laughed._

_It had been a good day. They had learned about the revolutionary war in Social Studies and had gotten to use paint in art. Jonathan hadn’t ended up in the principal’s office, which was good because after the fight that month they had threatened to expel him from if there was another incident. Her mom was out of town so they were staying over at Luke’s. And she had a bold plan to get ice cream._

_“Uncle Luke, we should get ice cream.” she said confidently._

_Luke had smiled, fond but a little tired. “And why is that?”_

_There were advantages to being a cute kid. Clary had twisted her hands in her paint stained skirt, too big for her because her mom had bought it at a thrift store and layered over leggings because it was cold. “”Cause you’re nice.”_

_“While that is a stunning argument, Clary, you’ll have to do better than that.”_

_She had glanced to Simon for backup and found none forthcoming because he was useless._

_“Because it tastes good and it’s almost winter and soon it will be too cold for ice cream?” Clary tried. “We have to seize the day.”_

_“We do have a limited window of opportunity.” Simon had said, finally stepping up to the plate._

_“Fine, fine.” Luke had held up his hands in mock surrender. “Ice cream it is. I shudder to think of what you’ll be like when you’re sixteen and all want cars.”_

_“It’s Brooklyn.” Jonathan had said with more disgust than the average ten year old could muster up. “And I don’t think we can afford a car.”_

_“Try to tell that to a sixteen year old.” Luke said smoothly, switching around so he could be in between them and the cars as they crossed the street._

_There were a few ice creams places in the area surrounding their school and Luke had picked the nearest one. Baskin Robbins, cheap and chain, but elementary schoolers didn’t have the most discerning taste and Clary and Luke had been delighted to be allowed two scoops each._

_Jonathan had been quiet by anyone’s standards so once they were all perched on chairs too high for them and Clary and Simon had finished their rendition of the day Luke had turned to him with a smile and asked, “And what did you do, Jonathan?”_

_“We did a lab for science. And we’re making a family tree.” Jonathan had looked intently at his ice cream, lemon sorbet because he was gross and did not appreciate the value of chocolate, but his voice was sharp. “You’ve known Mom for a long time, right?”_

_Luke had shifted uncomfortably. “Yes. I have.”_

_“Then you knew our dad, and our grandparents?”_

_“I did.” Luke confirmed. “But you’re much better off talking to Jocelyn about it when she gets back.”_

_A grimace had crossed Jonathan’s face quickly, before being replaced by more run of the mill boredom. “It’s not like she’ll say anything. Just the usual spiel about a dead soldier.”_

_“Then it’s hers not to say.”_

_“We don’t have any right to know?” Jonathan said in a low undertone as he finished off his sorbet._

_“For now.” Luke had allowed, so distinctly discomfited that Jonathan had gotten the hint and dropped it._

_Later that night, when they were both tucked into bed after a long afternoon of adventures like “Helping Luke in his book shop” and “Making pasta with Luke” Clary had asked why he wanted to know. Lots of people didn’t have dads, or even moms. And tons of people didn’t have grandparents._

_“You don’t understand.” Jonathan had said disparagingly. “You’re just like Mom. But I’m not. And I want to know who I’m like.”_

_Clary had shaken off her blankets so she could crawl up to look at him, on the top bunk of the bunk beds they always shared when staying with Luke. He complained about his guest room looking like a cheap hostel and-he'd-seen-enough-of-them-to-know (his exact words) but the bunk beds were part of the fun of Luke’s. “You’re like me.” she had said. “Except with different hair and less freckles.”_

_“Clary. I’m not.”_

 

It was a strategy concocted over the three or so visits to Magnus that Luke had already helped her with. Jonathan tended to panic and then Clary would panic and things could get chaotic before Magnus could get them down. After the time they had both bitten him Luke and Jocelyn had started to take them in separately, so they would only have to deal with one child seeing through Magnus’s glamour and having a hissy fit at once. Then once they were both unconscious he could do the spell. It was a good system but it felt much more manipulative than just knocking them out and messing with their brains did.

No matter, she’d do it again in a heart beat.

Jocelyn glanced through her lashes at her son, sprawling out over the taxi seat. His hair was messy and his gaze downcast, sulky even.

He looked up abruptly and when he met her eyes he seemed almost accusatory. A monster child, always in trouble and pulling the wings off of insects, never making friends, just starting to grow into a monster adult.

“They’ve been a while.” Jocelyn said, playing her part easily and painfully. “Why don’t you go in and see if they need any help. It’s just the loft up there.”

Jonathan didn’t entirely seem to be buying it. He was smart and he had taught himself how to read people young. Sometimes Jocelyn wondered if that was the only reason he knew how to act normally, being able to anticipate what others were thinking. Of course if that was the case he would probably be in trouble less often.

Still he stepped out of the idling cab and walked down the street to the building Clary and Luke had entered a few minutes earlier. Once he was out of sight Jocelyn got out herself and paid the cabbie, a ridiculous amount that would take chunk out of their budget. They’d have to find another way back home.

She ambled up to the apartment, not wanting to lose Jonathan but also not wanting to let him spot her. Luke could take care of things, she reminded herself, he wasn’t the silly boy she had once known. Neither of them were children any more.

The amble surrendered into a run when halfway up the stairs she heard yelling. Trust only went so far.

It looked different from when she had last been there, but Magnus had the inclination and the ability to redecorate often and dramatically. Clary was asleep on the couch already, red hair stained golden by the warm light. Bane was leaning against the far wall, eyes flashing with some emotion Jocelyn didn’t have the time to analyze.

Jonathan was in the middle of the room, fists balled at his sides. Luke was trying to talk to him, for some angel forsaken reason.  
“What do you mean you’re going to let him wipe my brain?” he turned to her. “Mom, what’s going on? What’s wrong with Clary? What has been going on? Why did those lunatics at the park recognize Uncle Luke?”

Jocelyn closed her eyes for a long second. This was why she just got Magnus to put them to sleep. Jonathan was still as the dead, eyes flickering and muscles tensed, ready to bolt or do something equally drastic and dangerous. “It’s really very complicated.” she hedged, trying to mentally communicate the need for a sleeping spell this instant to Bane.

“You don’t say.” Jonathan snarled and Bane finally got the message. Or a message because he pushed himself up from his vertical wall lounge and cleared his throat.

“How about I explain it.” he made a shooing gesture at Jocelyn and Luke. “You two can go make coffee.” It was not exactly what Jocelyn had wanted to hear but it was something and she was inclined to put her faith in Bane’s judgement. However ridiculously he dressed he was a warlock centuries old and if it wasn’t for him her master plan to keep her children safe would be a lot more shaky.

She and Luke retreated to the sleek kitchen with the wary watching and light steps they had perfected as teenagers, running raids against every creature of the night. The familiarity stung almost as much as Luke going against her wishes to explain things to Jonathan did. He must have notice her betrayal because he sighed, lines of age and stress a fine tracery around his eyes.

“Sorry about that. He came in and Clary was already unconscious and he started yelling. I just wanted him to understand before Magnus did the spell.”

He was a Shadowhunter just as much as she was, born to march the edges of the world and keep the monsters at bay, raised to kill and to kill well. He had killed, for a myriad of reasons. They’d been Valentine’s closest confidantes together, monsters in their own right. He’d been barely out of his teens when they’d arranged a counter coup, set things up so people they had called friends could be murdered. Somehow Luke was still too kind for his own good. It didn’t escape her notice that these times came most often when her children were involved.

Jocelyn had been ready to be mad at him but she couldn’t help a sudden bout of sympathy. An unfortunate ailment, she thought, and sadly too often terminal. “I know. It’s just for the better if they don’t know anything.”

Luke went over to inspect the kettle, there was no coffee machine. Jocelyn stayed by the door, trying to eavesdrop on the suspicious lack of voices from the next room. There was an unhealthy sounding gurgle from the pot of boiling water and Luke spoke. “You can’t keep them in the dark forever, Jocelyn.”

The sympathy evaporated like morning dew. “Just watch me.”

His muffled cough sounded suspiciously like nervous laughter. Jocelyn decided that for the sake of their friendship it was probably better to change the topic. Not talking, while also an option, seemed like a sure route to obsessing over the almost but not quite coherent voices from Bane’s sitting room. “Was there any trouble with the faeries?”

“Only a little. They recognized me, god alone know how, and I made up a lie about them being the children of a friend with a bit of Sight in the family. You know it can be unpredictable in mundanes without training. They bought it.”

Jocelyn had never been so happy for Luke’s minimal presence in the supernatural underground. Usually it just felt like a possible danger, another way for him to catch the eye of someone they didn’t want looking and by doing so bring attention to her and the kids. The Lightwoods were supposed to be in the city and while Jocelyn held them little ill will she also wanted to stay as far away from them as possible.

Still, it had been nearly impossible for Luke to stay completely out of the way and he had turned it to his advantage, keeping an ear out for any news of Valentine whenever he dropped in on one of the local werewolf hangouts.

“You’re making quite a name for yourself.” she said simply.

Luke leaned back slightly, away from her. “I broke up a fight in one of the bars last month, keep getting asked to do it again. I think I’m going to try to lay low for a while though.”

For her. It was more than she should have asked for and she appreciated it.

There was a scream and a crash followed by some truly impressive cursing in a language Jocelyn didn’t recognize from the other room, which cut their conversation short very efficiently. Crashing through the door she saw Bane, trying to keep an unconscious Jonathan upright with one hand and inspecting the other. When he saw her he made a face.

“Your itsy bitsy psychopath broke my wrist.” he said in wounded tones, even as he flicked his hand and enveloped the injured joint in a twist of flame. Jocelyn was too busy lifting Jonathan and transferring him to the armchair, so the casual banter didn’t taste as bitter as it might have otherwise.

Bane continued. “I try to get him calm enough to knock him out without him having an even more raging headache tomorrow morning and that’s how I get repaid? Honestly, children are menaces. I did not just dodge a bullet there, I dodged a grenade. I better get a bonus for this.”

She didn’t feel like selling another piece of her jewelry just to soothe Bane’s ego. “I’ll paint a portrait of you.” she said sharply and the warlock brightened.

“Lovely. We’ll get down to it then? He,” a nod to Luke, “said they’re already remembering, but it hasn’t been two years yet.”

“We have almost two months left on the spell, or we should have had.” Jocelyn confirmed.

Magnus hovered over each of the children in turn, hands almost gentle on their foreheads. He could be brash and loud and always pointed out how little he cared but he wasn’t cruel and he had always been kind with Clary and Jonathan.

“Hmmph.”

“What is it?” Jocelyn asked, already half panicking. If it weren’t for the fact that she’d seen worse before she would have been panicking.

“It’s hard to tell for sure.” Bane shrugged, tugging a coffee out of thin air. “Especially since I think it might be a number of different factors. Their brains are growing for one thing, children do that. I had to lay the last spells on thin because they were so young and to some extent they’ve outgrown it, but that doesn’t explain how thoroughly it’s broken, or how quickly. Is there any faerie blood in your family? I know the Nephilim don’t like to talk about that sort of thing, on account of you all being raging blood purists with superiority complexes, but something other than the basic human angel mix would have thrown my calculations off.”

Demon blood, Jocelyn thought, and said, “No, I don’t think so.”

“In that case I think that they might be breaking the spell for each other.”

That made absolutely no sense, even to someone trained in magical theory.

“Sorry?” Luke asked, echoing Jocelyn’s own thoughts.

Magnus waved his hand idly again, it was entirely possible he was just checking it’s healing at this point, and put down his coffee so he could explain with elaborate hand gestures. “It’s a memory wipe, not a block persay. They forget quickly but not that quickly and the spell becomes weaker if they want to remember. If they’re around each other enough I think they might be… jogging each other’s memories. One of them will react to something, if only for a split second, and the other will try to see what they saw. One of them talks about weird after images in the corner of their eyes and the other starts looking for them too. They try to see and the spell grows weaker for it.”

“But you can still renew it? It will still hold?” said Jocelyn.

“Absolutely. They’re old enough that I can place a stronger one. It might still break a little early, so keep an eye on them, but if it doesn’t last at least a year and a half I’ll eat my hat. And you’ve seen some of my hats.”

“Thank you.” she said honestly. “Can you do it now?”

“It’s not that easy.” Bane complained. “It’s not just bippity boppity boo.” He looked thoughtful then shook his head and said, almost to himself. “I’d be a terrible fairy godmother. I’m going to need an hour or so to prep and let my reserve of magic build back up, then I can do it.”

It ended up taking two hours. Jocelyn and Luke sat on the free chairs and downed coffee as Magnus Bane played brain surgeon. When he finally pronounced both Clary and Jonathan suitably mindwiped Jocelyn was happy to pay him and leave.

Of course the fact that both her children were still out for the count, Clary not even stirring, didn’t exactly make leaving easy.

Bane offered, surprisingly kindly, to open a Portal back to their apartment. Since the alternative was lugging two middle schoolers through the subway or trying to catch a cab at eleven at night, Jocelyn accepted. She did wish Luke had brought his truck, but he was trying to save on gas and probably hadn’t expected the evening to take such a turn.

“I’ll take Jonathan.” Luke offered, taking it upon himself to lift the heavier burden, per usual.

Jocelyn shook her head. “Actually if you could get Clary that would be great.”

Luke nodded and lifted her daughter up off the couch, cradling her carefully. It seemed only recently that she had still been a little girl, small enough for him to carry on his hip. Now she was all limbs, Jocelyn reflected, not exactly tall but not a baby anymore.

With that thought occupying her mind she wrapped her arms around her son’s chest and heaved him off the armchair. He was lighter than she had expected, but even after years in hiding a Fairchild was still stronger than the average human.

His head lolled on her shoulder as Magnus finished the portal. She could feel his vague attempts to wake up, one of his hands grasping at her shirt. Clary had done that as a baby, little fists clinging to everything in reach, but he hadn’t.

She carried him over to the portal, Luke with Clary close behind. “Thank you.” Jocelyn told Magnus a bit a bit stiffly.

“Not a problem, darling. I do still want that portrait though.”

Jocelyn didn’t quite have the energy to smile but she did try not to look upset. “Of course.” she said as she stepped through the portal.

It felt like it usually did, not unpleasant but a little startling, the tugging of magic at the fine hairs on your skin and the sense of abruptness. Their apartment looked like it usually did, art work and school supplies strewn about. She had forgotten to turn the lights off when they left.

Luke stepped through after her and the portal dissipated quickly. “Well, that was an adventure.” he said tiredly.

A nod was all Jocelyn could muster for a minute until her thoughts coalesced like a painting coming together, all the pieces finally clicking. “You can stay the night if you help me get them back to bed.” she said in a voice as worn as she felt. “That’s a lie, you can stay the night anyways, but I’d appreciate the help.”

“Always.” Luke said, already taking Clary to the room she and Jonathan shared, really too small for teenagers but the brownstone was the best place for them and they didn’t seem to mind.

Love shouldn’t mean demands, Jocelyn thought as she followed after. But it did often mean asking. She knew she asked a lot of Luke, and she didn’t feel a bit guilty about it. Maybe because she wasn’t asking for herself.

Jonathan’s hair tickled her cheek as he lifted his head, somehow already fighting his way out of slumber, a born warrior when Jocelyn wanted nothing to do with any more wars.

“Mommy?” he asked, dazed and distracted and slipping back into a term he hadn’t used for years, had dropped at around eight and only after a few years of only using it to get what he wanted.

“Yeah.” Jocelyn said. “Let’s get you to bed.”

 

 

 

_Jonathan had rather hated Simon at first. He was annoying. He was small. He never knew when to shut up, and he kept taking Clary away._

_Playdates and birthday parties, Jonathan had tolerated it at first because Clary liked it but after a year he decided it was entirely unconscionable._

_Clary was his sister, his person. He had his Mom, of course, and lately Luke who Jonathan rather liked despite himself, but Clary was different. She was younger and she never looked at him the way the grownups did, so sad and a little scared, like they were seeing someone other than him. Clary got upset when he did bad things, but she always forgave him in the end. Clary was quiet and self absorbed and she loved him._

_Simon had to go, he had decided._

_He hadn’t really made any plans other than that until the day that they were on the balcony._

_Looking back he couldn’t remember quite why, but that one of Jonathan’s ‘friends’ at the time had invited him over and Simon and Clary had tagged along because you needed four people for a good game of Monopoly. His friend, a girl named Kira who tended to be disorderly as he was and whose mother had invited Jonathan over out of sheer delight over her making friends, had promptly absconded with Clary to play dress up because she was a traitor. Jonathan was listening closely for screams, from either party. In the meantime Kira’s mother had gone to work in her study, leaving Simon and Jonathan, banished from dress up despite the fact that Simon rocked a Snow White dress, alone in the living room._

_Jonathan had immediately made for the glass door to the balcony._

_“I don’t think we’re allowed out there.”_

_“Don’t be a baby, Simon.” Jonathan had said amiably and tugged at the doors until they opened silently. He beckoned the other boy out, not entirely possessed of a plan but slowly coming to one._

_Simon was frankly a pushover, even back then. He had crept out onto the fifth floor balcony carefully, staying away from the wrought iron around the edges._

_“Come on.” Jonathan had whined, rapidly losing patience and motivation. Children weren’t the best at staying on task, even if that task was nefarious, and he was no different._

_Once Simon was close Jonathan had nodded and grabbed him by the lapels, pushing him back against the railing with all his might, considerable especially since Simon was skinny. They were both short enough that the cool metal came up to their necks, and that was if they stood on tiptoe. On the other hand Jonathan hadn’t been entirely sure he couldn’t push through, and shove the other child onto the sidewalk below, make it look like shoddy engineering._

_“Jon?” Simon had asked in a voice that shook like autumn leaves in a gale. It was stupid, Simon was stupid, that nickname was stupid._

_He looked scared._

_Mom would probably be really upset if Simon died, and she might even know it was his fault, Jonathan had considered. Mom never wrote things off as impossible for him the way his teachers did._

_Clary would definitely be upset._

_The idea made him livid, and he pushed Simon harder into the twisted railing until he cried out._

_It was, to use a word from one of Luke’s books, pathetic._

_Jonathan had let Simon go then, let him dive to the safety of the door. He smiled, because he needed another person if they really were going to play Monopoly. Kira had promised she knew the rules and could teach them. She was probably lying and it would probably end in tears._

_Jonathan wasn’t looking forward to that._

_Simon had taken a breath and asked in his little voice, “What was that?”_

_“I was just playing.” he had said and smiled more until Simon smiled too._

_He had kind of regretting letting him go when Simon trounced them all at bastardized Monopoly, but other than that the matter was mostly settled._

 

 

“We’re grounded.” Clary announced the day after the next at lunch. “For forever, my mom says.”

Simon blinked and looked instinctively for her brother, even though he had an entirely different lunch period.

“Last night did get kind of wild.” he said around a mouthful of hamburger, no cheese, trying to be supportive and honest because anything else seemed likely to set Clary off. He didn’t feel like sitting alone.

Clary made a face, mouth twisting. “I can’t even really remember it, that head cold came back with a vengeance. Yesterday was a solid migraine and my new sketchbook went missing so I spent half the day wandering around on painkillers trying to figure out if the Borrowers took it, nothing else is really registering. If you're going to get in trouble for something you might as well be able to appreciate it.”

Simon lowered his voice, even though the closest person was Jaida Jones and she seemed very absorbed in her PB and J, “You and Jonathan were acting really weird. He punched someone and then Luke came in and called everyone off. He wouldn’t happen to be in a gang, would he?” It had been praying on his mind since last night, how strange mild Luke had looked and how he had seemed familiar to the others.

There was a giggle. “Luke? No, he just knows a lot of strange people because of his book shop. Believe me, he’d be terrible at being in a gang, unless he was a bookkeeper or something. And Jonathan punches a lot of people, so it doesn’t sound that weird to me. Did you like the music at least, since I got grounded over it?”

“Yeah.” Simon said, relieved to change the subject. “It was really cool. Different in real life. Kind of spooky.”

“Did the big bad musicians scare you?” Clary mocked good-naturedly as she stole a square of his jello. Simon let it slide because he was already plotting how to get her clementine.

“Don’t mock my pain. It was very traumatizing.”

Clary laughed again, red hair all over the place, and Simon moved on.

 

 

 

Most sixteen year olds weren’t on an eight o’clock curfew. Most sixteen year olds weren’t Clary Fray. Every time her brother got in trouble their mother got even more over-protective. She could almost hate him for that, except that she could never hate Jonathan for long. It was simply unimaginable.

“How much longer do we have?” Simon asked as if reading her mind.

“An hour.” Clary sighed, checking her wrist and then looking around the street. Technically they weren’t supposed to be wandering New York, they were supposed to be at the library. But Clary had never been one for technicalities and she had always been one for pushing the limits of her mother’s patience.

It was possible Jonathan wasn’t the only reason they were on a tight leash. Jocelyn Fray had been wary as a rabbit in an immaculate garden for weeks though, and Clary didn’t think it was entirely her fault, or even Jonathan’s.

Simon looked appropriately sympathetic. “I thought she would have calmed a little after your birthday.”

Clary laughed bitterly. “Have you met my mother or was I hallucinating all those times you bore witness to her absolutely inability to handle anything without locking us in our rooms? Jonathan’s barely allowed out for anything but work and school now. And it’s summer vacation.”

“In fairness, he did get arrested.”

“He was provoked.” Clary said, driven to defend her blood from her seemingly heartless friend.

“There were arson charges.”

“They got dropped.”

“But he definitely did punch that pitbull.”

Clary glared. “You were there Simon! It was attacking us. Even Mom couldn’t argue with that.” Her mother had in fact been very startled, terrified even, when she finally arrived on the scene. Jocelyn hadn’t let Clary go anywhere for the next few days, even though it was the week before her birthday. She would have dragged them off to Luke’s farm if Jonathan hadn’t threatened to run off and join the army.

He had meant it too, she knew he had. She loved her mother, knew that her mother loved her as much as she knew that the sky was blue and that in New York there was always traffic. But sometimes she felt caught in between sympathy for her brother’s quiet deliberate acting out and her mother’s desperate attempts to keep control, to keep them all safe and out of prison, even if Jocelyn’s protective streak had recently extended to banning her from her favorite club.

In the meantime Simon had withered under her stare and raised his hands in mock surrender. “Yeah, yeah. I love your terrifying brother too, Clary. We should stop by a convenience store on the way back to your house and get him something. A ‘sorry you’re grounded again’ present. Or a SYGA, as it were.”

‘What would you suggest?” Clary asked, ignoring the silent assumption that Simon would be coming home with her. He did that a lot. When they were younger their houses had been interchangeable but as Jocelyn tightened her grip the Fray house had become the destination of choice.

After due thought Simon declared, “A bag of candy.”

“Jonathan never eats more than a few pieces at a time, because of all his sports.” Clary said with some confusion. “He’d end up giving most of it to us… Oh. That is clever. I knew I kept you around for a reason.” she joked.

“Brains and dashing good looks.” Simon said carefully. “Think about it, he’d know that we care about him and sympathize with his plight. We’d get candy. It’s a win-win.”

“Let’s do it, now. I want to get home early, so my Mom doesn’t get more worry lines. And doesn’t have a reason to lock me in the apartment until I’m thirty.”

Simon pushed his glasses back up. “Your mother is a beautiful, mature woman.”

“Last week you said Luke could probably get a girlfriend if he wanted one. Or a boyfriend. I’m starting to suspect that you only hang around me to admire my family.”

“No comment.”

 

 

 

Simon kind of loved the Fray apartment. Jocelyn, Mrs Fray, could be intense sometimes, and he still had sneaking suspicions about Luke after one incident when they were twelve but overall it was a nice place to live. The food was questionable, there were art supplies everywhere, and the coffee flowed like water. Most importantly it always seemed alive. He loved his own Mom, but she worked long hours at a non-profit and with Rebecca gone his own home could sometimes seem a little empty. Even totally abandoned Clary’s place promised that someone would be back any minute, and it always seemed full of light.

Jocelyn Fray was in the living room, reading something, and she started when they came in before asking the traditional Mom questions- How was your day? Have you eaten yet? That shirt is covered in paint, toss it in the wash, will you?- which Clary answered easily. For all the mundanity of the exchange Jocelyn still looked jumpy.

Once that ritual was fulfilled and Jocelyn returned to her book they went to Clary and Jonathan’s room. On the way Simon had to ask, “What was that little bottle next to her?”

Clary looked momentarily confused then shrugged. “I think it’s perfume. She’s always had it, I used to think she got it from my dad. She’s just been carrying it around a lot lately.” She knocked on the door and yelled. “Put on your clothes and hide anyone you snuck into your room!”

From the hallway Simon could see Jocelyn’s face, somewhere between a grin and a grimace and maybe the tiniest bit nightmarish.

“Done!” A voice called back, “Just don’t open the closet.”

The door was flung open the second Clary got the go ahead. Simon was a little surprised when he couldn’t see anyone inside.

Jonathan’s side of the room wasn’t anything special. A few trophies on the dresser and tiny desk and a half made bed. Boys ballet slippers hanging from a hook in the partially opened closet, though Jonathan had quit ballet two years before after an abruptly started, abruptly ended, and much storied career involving copious amounts of raw talent and a starring role in a big production within the first three years of dancing. The room was almost too perfect, a calculated casualness as if he couldn’t be bothered to clean up but also didn’t care enough to make a proper mess. Simon knew he had more trophies than the handful artfully arrayed around the room but rather than boxing them up Jonathan just threw most of them in the trash the second he got them. There were a lot of things he didn’t care about, and when they had been younger the detachment had seemed cool, something to aspire to.

Aside from the slight creepiness the thing that drew the eye most about the room was the curtain that separated the two halves of it.

A few years ago the Fray siblings had thrown together and bought heavy white canvas curtains to replace the terrible green ones they’d had dividing the room before. In the ensuing months the cloth had been carefully covered with paint, a complex landscape in a dozen different styles with a dozen different disparate elements on both sides on the curtains. It was too eclectic to go in a gallery or anything but it was impressive.

It had taken Simon a while to get used to the startling shapes and colours. Some of the figures seemed to be staring at him. He had no idea how Jon and Clary had managed to get enough sleep after it had first been installed.

Clary made for it immediately and threw it back, revealing a figure outlined against the window.

“This is my side of the room.” she said, without any real distress.

“And the door is on my side of the room. Luckily, we are flexible and share. Otherwise things would get awkward fast.” When Jonathan moved Simon realized that he was in fact sitting in the window. It was open. With anyone else it would have been frightening but Jonathan could handle heights.

“We brought candy.” Simon said as he followed Clary to perch on her bed. It was a good sized room, a remnant of the fact that the brownstone had once been a very fancy house, which meant it had been easy to split up. Even then the fact that there was only one door made it a bit weird, but Clary and Jonathan handled it better than Simon would have. He couldn’t imagine having to room with Rebecca.

Jonathan slipped down from the window and leaned against Clary’s wardrobe. “I did not realize you thought I was being starved, but the gesture is appreciated.”

Simon tossed the bag of Snickers over and Jonathan picked out a handful and then threw it back, before sliding to the floor, seemingly uninterested in moving. In fairness there were a lot of clothes on the ground, so it was probably comfortable.

Clary seemed to be occupying herself already with a sketchbook which left Simon to lead the conversation. The things he did for friendship.

“So, are you going to Jaida’s party on Friday?”

“If I can get away from my Mom.” Clary rolled her eyes. “And you know the chances of that happening are slim to none. Jaida’s going to think I hate her.” she continued, not sounding entirely thrilled with the prospect but not devastated either. Clary had a quiet self-possession which meant that she relied on very few people and didn’t care much what the others thought of her.

“I doubt that. She likes you.” Simon said soothingly.

Underneath her nonchalance Clary looked rather pleased. “I’ll see if I can go then. She has been hanging out with us a lot lately.” There was a certain significance to her tone that brought to mind a conversation that they’d had a few weeks ago. Simon considered informing her that he did not want to go out with Jaida but that seemed like a good path to awkward questions and confessions that would make Jonathan tear his head off.

From the floor there was a disparaging snort. “Why? You have Simon, you don’t need any friends.”

“Believe it or not people can have more than one friend.” Simon told Jonathan defensively.

Clary nodded sharply her apathy wiped away by the instinctive need to prove her brother wrong, “Besides, what if I want to talk about girl stuff?”

“He,” Jonathan nodded to Simon in a manner that was both restrained and yet somehow offensive, “can do that. Didn’t you guys go out dress shopping once?”

They had, at least twice, in fact, and Simon didn’t see how that counted. He had been a helpful outside opinion, there was nothing wrong with that.

Clary had the steely expression of one going in for the kill. “What if… I want to talk about tampons?”

Here Simon felt the need to step in and defend himself. He wasn’t a delicate flower, nor, contrary to Jon’s beliefs, a tolerable attachment to Clary, like some sort of limpet. “I would bear it with gentlemanly grace.” he declared.

Jonathan laughed. “You have talked to me about tampons. Multiple times. You don’t need any more friends.”

“But it’s not your choice to make.” Clary said. Jonathan opened his mouth to speak again then closed it abruptly possibly having decided this was not a battle he wanted to fight, possibly having realized he was getting a little weird again. Bereft of an argument Clary pulled a face. “These tiny candy bars get really gross when you eat a lot of them.”

“The downsides of cheap candy.” Simon said wisely but his mouth was starting to acquire a gummy quality as well. “I’ll get us some water.”

Clary smiled at him as he stood up and started picking his way back across the room. It was a little intimidating, Clary’s half covered in the detritus of art, really good art, and Jonathan’s half speaking of deep athletic talent. And he knew for a fact Jon could draw well and Clary probably could have gone out for track if she wanted to, she was wicked fast sometimes. The fact that they had the combined musical inclination of a particularly non-musical rock kept him from feeling too overshadowed. Clary had even managed to weasel her way out of third grade recorders somehow, possibly because the teacher had had her brother the year before and was inclined to overlook things that kept from having to deal with another Fray.

As he headed to the kitchen he noticed Jocelyn standing by the door talking quickly to someone on her phone. he didn’t really mean to eavesdrop, but it happened, especially since she was too distracted to notice him.

“Are you sure?” There was a voice on the other end, but nothing Simon could make out, not from across the room. Jocelyn nodded and worried at her lower lip. “We should have left last week, we can’t hide forever.” Another longer pause before she continued. “That gives us some extra time but you know we can’t count on him being stupid. And he can’t get his hands on them or it, I won’t let him. I almost wish this had happened years ago. You could have taken them away. As it is if we try to move them they’ll do something reckless and play right into his hands.”

There was a note of real panic in her voice that Simon had rarely heard from Mrs. Fray before. On the few occasions when he had it had been because of her children. He continued padding, slowly into the kitchen because moving made it seem less like spying. He had a goal, everything else was just incidental.

“No, I still can’t get to Bane.” She was playing with something in her other hand now, the little vial Simon had seen next to her on the coffee table. It did look like a perfume bottle in shape but the design was too simple, the gunmetal grey of it too worn.

“No, I can’t tell them!” Her voice rose a little but it was still restrained, and the combination of soft volume and sharp emotion made it sound like cracking glass.

Jocelyn’s hand closed around the vial convulsively as she listened. “I know… I know. I’ll talk to them again tomorrow about going up to the farm. Otherwise, there are a few alternatives available. Thank you for calling about the rumours, if they’re true God knows what he could do if he got to Clary and Jonathan. I- Simon!”

It felt worryingly like being caught in the middle of a crime. Simon pointed to the kitchen cabinet he was standing in front of. “Getting water.” he said and realized too late that the glasses were on the other side of the room.

She didn’t seem to notice, just smiled weakly. “Right. How much did you hear?”

“Not a lot.” Simon lied reassuringly, mostly because what he had heard was vague and bizarre.

Jocelyn nodded slowly. “Is your mother going to be in town for the next few days?”

“Erm, yes?” he answered, even more confused. Jocelyn continued nodding as if this was what he wanted to hear.

“Please don’t tell Clary and Jonathan about that, I’m planning a surprise for them.” she said, despite the fact that surprises rarely inspired the desperation in her voice and the shell shocked look on her face. “Can you and Clary and Jonathan hold down the fort here? I need to go talk to Dorothea.”

Dorothea, Madame Dorothea, was their downstairs neighbor, who read fortunes or something. Clary was always complaining that her mother was the only one she would talk to. Simon shrugged and turned to actually get water glasses. “It doesn’t exactly sound like a high risk job, Mrs. Fray. We can handle it.”

Jocelyn had the strangest expression on her face as she headed out the door. She hadn’t hung up her phone, Simon realized, and he thought he could hear her start talking again once she was out the door.

The rules of friendship dictated he report such an affair. The rules of obeying your deeply worried elders suggested he shouldn’t. He settled on a truncated version, and was rehearsing it as he headed back into the bedroom with three possibly overfull glasses of water.

They were both where he had left them and Clary reached out a hand for the water and gulped it down as he asked, “Your mom went down to talk to Madame Dorothea. Is something wrong with her? She was acting really strange.”

“That’s a shocker.” Clary deadpanned as her brother jumped smoothly to his feet. “She has never overreacted to random non-threatening events before.”

“Is she actually gone?” Jonathan asked, cutting off Simon’s rebuttal that Jocelyn had been acting really, really strange.

“Yes?” he replied and when the older boy disappeared back to his side of the room tried to continue, “She was talking about you and seemed really scared about someone learning about you, or something like that.” he finished weakly as Jonathan reappeared in a jacket and went to lean against the window.

“I’m going out.” he announced. Clary didn’t seem particularly shocked but Simon felt the need to speak up.

“Aren’t you grounded?”

Jonathan sneered in response. “If my cabin fever gets any worse I will kill someone. Matricide isn’t really my sin and Luke is stronger than he looks, so I think it’s in your best interest I leave, Lewis. Besides, I need to talk to some people.” There was a brief flash of some emotion in his dark eyes and he gave Clary an indecipherable look. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

“Better than you are.” she said. “I’ll cover for you, but be careful. I know you’ve been having issues.” She glanced at Simon which he knew to be the cue to bury his head in the pillow and pretend he couldn’t hear their brief conversation, which included the words, ‘Seeing things’ and ‘The two people at Pandemonium’ which was strange since they had last been to Pandemonium weeks ago. Clary had sworn she saw something, something about an invisible dark haired boy, and then Mrs Fray had heard they had been there and banned Clary on pain of military school from going again, a ban which unlike the previous ones had stuck so far. More specifically she had banned Jonathan, who she had always seemed more concerned about being at the club than her younger and objectively more out of place daughter.

When Clary tapped his back to let him up Jonathan was sitting in the window.

“Bye?” Simon offered, a little awkwardly. “Kirk said we should bring you along on our coffee run tomorrow morning, withg some of the other guys, so if you’re back by then you’re invited to that.”

“I’m honored. Stay safe, both of you.” Jonathan said, and it almost sounded sincere. Then he slid off the sill and into the night.

“Why do I feel like this is going to end with us in trouble?” Simon asked.

“You worry too much.” said Clary. “Channel some of the bravery you have in game sessions.”

“The thing about games is that they’re significantly less likely to get you grounded for life, or earn you a life sentence.” Simon said mournfully, unwrapping another mini candy bar. “I’m not going to tattle.” he added hastily at Clary’s sidelong glance. “I’m with you until they split us up to put us in separate prisons.”

Clary fell back onto her bedspread and stared at the ceiling as if it held the key to life. “Thanks.”

 

 

 

_Luke had taken the picture and then nearly dropped the camera. The red haired girl and brown haired boy, faces pressed close and laughing. Once upon a time there had been pictures of a girl named Fairchild and a boy named Greymark, almost identical to the one in his hand. Most of them had burned with the Fairchild manor, though he thought Amatis once had a few. She had probably thrown them out._

_Luke recovered the fumbled device quickly and shot Simon and Clary a grin. “I think this one deserves a place on a mantle. My only regret is that I don’t have one.”_

_They had both clambered to see, awkward thirteen year old limbs and too big t-shirts and the smell of bug spray pressing against his back. Clary had squinted at the image._

_“I look terrible.”_

_Thirteen year old anxiety too, he had sighed to himself. With Clary it was better not to entertain it. “Only a little bit. I wasn’t going to mention it.”_

_“Can we go back to apple picking now?” Simon asked._

_A fair head had poked out of the late summer leaves then, and a familiar voice said, “There aren’t a lot left.”_

_If Simon and Clary brought to mind summer adventures in gardens and the joy of childhood, Jonathan was a bitterer sight. Luke knew it wasn’t fair to him, but memories of Valentine were tinged with sorrow, even the triumphs shameful in hindsight. And though he had his mother’s willowy frame and sweet smile, when he bothered to use it, and manner of moving at first glance Jonathan most favoured his father._

_He had swung down from the tree easily, with little regard for the branches in between him and the ground or the fact that the ground was quite a way down. It wasn’t something that would have worried Luke if it was a Shadowhunter doing it but Jonathan wasn’t a Shadowhunter. Jocelyn had made that very clear._

_The boy landed on the ground at a crouch, one arm held close to his body, and straightened to muss his little sister’s hair with relative affection. Luke had kept his distance, not wanting to interrupt the moment. He had only stepped forward when Jonathan asked for the basket of apples so he could hand over his last armful of apples._

_“Thanks.” he had said and Luke had nodded in acknowledgement and hefted the basket. He had no idea what they were going to do with so many apples. They had to get more creative every year. Neither he nor Jocelyn were exactly culinary experts._

_Above his apple contemplation he had been able to hear a quiet argument about what to do now, only looking up to dispense a stern glance when stealing his car for a joyride was jokingly suggested. Clary and Simon finally decided to go down to the lake for another swim before dinner, which he had quietly approved._

_Luke had been a little surprised when Jonathan opted to go back to the farmhouse with him. He hadn’t exactly been a restful child, impulsive and easily bored and prone to considering terrible things to be entertainment. Unsurprisingly this didn’t exactly translate into an easy teenager._

_Still, he had been quiet enough as they trudged back to the farmhouse, shoulders hunched and mouth set in a thin line. It was the same way Valentine had gotten when he was pensive or steeling himself for something, though Valentine had always had better posture._

_“Stand up straight.” Luke had found himself saying automatically. “You’re-” The easy admonishment, You’re a Shadowhunter, you should know better, was wrong and he stumbled to amend himself. “Your back will stick like that.”_

_Jonathan had yanked his shoulders back with an almost violent swiftness. “Better?”_

_“For your health, yes.” Luke had said, and hoping to avoid another altercation, which inevitably ended with one of them reminding the other that Luke wasn’t in fact the children’s father. “So, any ideas for these apples?”_

_“Pie?” Jonathan had suggested unenthusiastically._

_“Maybe.” Luke said. “Are you sure you don’t want to go swimming?”_

_“Positive.”_

_“Is there something you want to talk about?”_

_Jonathan had shaken his head in one quick, sparing, movement and then instantly contradicted himself by asking, “Do you only like us because of our mother?”_

_It had been a sudden question and it had taken Luke a few second to fully comprehend it, to realize what Jonathan had been asking. Of course once he understood he immediately shook his head, matching the boy’s earlier motion. “No. Obviously I did start seeing you because of her, since we were friends and six year olds are not my usual social group, but I like you plenty well on your own.”_

_“Friends.” Jonathan had scoffed. “You don’t want to be friends.”_

_It was a shock, to hear it so abrupt and honest from a child’s- barely a child, old enough to kill if he’d been raised in Idris- tongue. Jonathan had made jokes before, mean spirited barbs and significant glares, but nothing so forthright. Again, Luke had been momentarily stunned, though the second time he recovered more quickly. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I’m happy being friends with your mother and she’s happy being friends with me.”_

_Luke had remembered being seventeen, seeing a starred ring on Jocelyn’s finger. It had been a little loose, but not as bad as some ring exchanges could be. One young couple had such differently sized hands they’d had to wear the rings on chains around their necks. Maryse and Robert had to resort to the old trick of securing it with another ring and wearing it on a pinky finger, respectively. By comparison Jocelyn and Valentine had been made for each other. It had seemed a good omen, that they could wear each other’s family tokens so easily and he had hugged them both and been reassured that the two people he loved most had loved each other. He had buried the stab of jealousy easily, tucked it away and participated in the festivities._

_In hindsight, maybe he should have been doing less festivity participating and more objecting and possibly sabotage. But that felt too much like wishing Jonathan and Clary out of existence._

_Jonathan looked up, eyes as sharp as chips of obsidian. “As long as you don’t upset her.” he had said airily and then added, “Or leave us.”_

_It was strange to think of him as a lonely child, but Luke had realized he probably was. Though he could be charming at times he had none of Valentine’s effortless charisma, and though he could make friends he found it difficult to keep them. Aside from his sister Jonathan’s closest friend was probably Simon, who was a year younger and Clary’s first and foremost._

_“I’m happy right where I am.” Luke had said. “Even if we have far too many apples.”_

_He had noticed the way Jonathan’s shoulders relaxed, as if he had honestly been worried about being abandoned. Maybe he had been, he could be insecure about people’s affections. Jocelyn was so sparing with hers. Luke hadn’t known the full story, but he knew Valentine had done something, something terrible, to his own child. That it had made Jocelyn wary, had made Jonathan different, precocious and changeable. Luke had his own suspicions but he honestly hadn’t really wanted to know the full story. He suspected it might have made it harder to love Jonathan, and so he was better off not knowing, for everyone’s sake._


	3. Everyone Starts A Bar Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, finally wrapping this up, with the longest continuous scene I have ever written and also my first real fight scene. It's a little bland, but I'm hoping I got the right emotional beats across, do tell me what you think. I really do live for comments and really appreciate the few I've gotten.

They made their escape that morning carefully. Simon had gone home at ten, and Jonathan had returned around midnight. They probably wouldn’t have thought to leave early, if Simon, reliable as he was, hadn’t made it so clear that their mother wanted to talk to them about something that morning.

Talking about something was a sure code for a conversation point so contentious it would turn into a fight. So Clary and Jonathan snuck out at five in the morning and left a note saying they were getting coffee and then meeting up with some friends before Jonathan went to take one of his spontaneous shifts at the bookshop, where he had been intermittently working for Luke for years.

Their mother was going to have a heart attack. They were going to be grounded for years. But Clary was sixteen, only by a week or so but still, sixteen. Jonathan was seventeen. They were certainly old enough to go out for coffee.

A side effect of smothering was a need to escape, Clary thought. Jocelyn had always had a little trouble with that concept, or maybe she had known and hadn’t cared.

Either way, the crisp morning and the bustle of the city quickly put her into good spirits, even with her brother looked decidedly conflicted next to her.

He had said he wanted her help with something after her coffee get together. He had refused to elaborate further. Normally Clary would have written it off as paranoia but things had been different lately. Little moments of confusion, seeing strange things. And she knew Jonathan had it too, and worse besides. For all his smarts he was not good at dealing with stress in even vaguely healthy ways. With only one year between them sometimes Clary felt less like a little sister and more like a twin. They balanced each other, and she would help him even if he wouldn’t say with what.

In the meantime they found an empty table in the far corner of Java Jones and tried to sprawl themselves over as many seats as possible. Leaving early meant they had a while before everyone else arrived, and Clary went through two black coffees and one truly disgusting green tea before people started to filter in. Simon, Eric, Jaida, Matt but not Kirk, a few other acquaintances from school. It was a small group, a handful of bored teens trying to fill the weeks between the end of camps and internships and the start of the school year, but still larger than Clary had expected.

There was a pair of younger girls, who Clary vaguely recognized and who Eric quickly put to work waitressing. They didn’t seem to mind much, but then again they had the nervous energy of middle schoolers. The smaller of the girls was playing with a camera and Clary managed to identify her as a fan, the fan, really, of the band. Eric’s second cousin’s friend or something, harmless but incredibly enthusiastic.

Once everyone was situated, Jaida and Simon and the rest of the band squeezing into Clary and Jonathan’s table, and they were out of earshot Eric immediately started complaining about them.

“‘Take your cousin with you, she loves you!’” he said, looking pained. “I like her too Mom, but she doesn’t need to go with me everywhere. And Maureen definitely doesn’t need to come along.”

“Is Maureen the little one?” Jonathan asked, as if voicing Clary’s thoughts. Less psychically, he added. “I like her.” It was the first thing he’d actually said so far, actually the first time he’d acknowledged the new arrivals

“You actually approve of someone?” Simon looked appalled. “Oh my god, who did that little girl kill? She has to have killed someone if you like her.”

“Shut up, Lewis.” Jaida said, sparking a sudden dislike in Clary, even though she agreed. “They’re sweet kids.” Jaida babysat a lot, she vaguely remembered. Admittedly the girls were a little too old to be babies and too shrill to be sat upon without eardrum damage, but the protective instinct probably transferred.

“You have no idea what it’s like to have two tiny people hanging on to you all the time.” Eric said.

Jonathan had a sharp, easy laugh. “Constantly dogged by a younger relative and her best friend. What a nightmare. Surely no one else knows your pain.”

“You follow us around.” Simon pointed out. “It’s totally different.”

With a scowl Jonathan propped his chin on his hand and looked away, not even deigning to answer. Usually he would have had a snappy retort. He seemed antsy.

Fantastic, Clary thought. She had come here to get away from fights but it seemed it was just more of the same. Fortunately a boy in their class, Jacob something, came over with a chair to sit with them. The presence of another person broke up the tension well. Clary could have kissed Jacob if she didn’t know for a fact that he was not interested in girls. She still could have kissed him, in a platonic manner, it was that much of a relief.

With Jacob there and Maureen and Vicki threading their way through the mess of tables with hands full of hot drinks things settled down a little and Clary got Jaida to talk about her party.

“It’s really quiet.” she said, gesturing with her hands. “But it should be fun. I thought, sixteen you might as well do something.”

Clary nodded, and played with a coffee stirrer, holding it like a wand and drawing patterns in the spilled latte on the table. Her own birthday, just a few days ago, really, had been a very mild affair. But Jaida was more of a party person, was more gregarious in her own easy going way.

“So, are you coming?” Jaida asked. “No pressure but I’ve been trying to benchmark some numbers and no one will give me a straight answer.”

Jacob muttered something behind his hand that sounded suspiciously like, “I never give people straight answers.”

Clary acted on impulse and gave Jaida a firm nod. “I’ll definitely try to make it.”

Jaida’s smile was stunning. “Great!”

Clary didn’t have a lot of friends who were girls. It was a bit of a risk making friends with any of Simon’s friend’s girlfriends because they tended to be less than permanent and other girls had somehow never ended up as much more than acquaintances. . Jaida wasn’t too bad though, she decided.

It wasn’t terrible after that. Clary managed to talk to Maureen about photography which was more interesting than she had thought. A lot of the things she considered with her art was the same, lighting and contrast, but with photographs you had to alter the environment rather than the image itself.

She was a little disappointed when people started trickling away, back to their lives, and Jonathan gave her a look, finally detaching himself from the book he had been studiously reading under the table. The Tempest, she noted. She was a little surprised it wasn’t one of the bad romance novels he had been known to read on occasion, with the rakish, heartless cads eventually redeemed by love. His tendencies towards cruelty meant he could giggle over those for hours.

“Let’s go. The smell of this place is giving me a headache.” he said, snapping his book shut smartly.

Simon, one of the few people left other than Jacob who was lingering by the door looking at flyers and taking every single little phone number slip, raised an eyebrow.

“Where are you guys going?”

“None of your business. Clary, come on. We don’t have all day.”

It was petty but Clary didn’t feel like being bossed around right at that moment. “I think Simon should come.”

“I think that’s a really moronic idea. You’re smarter than this, little sister, most of the time.”

He tugged on her arm, though not with much force. Clary stood firm. “Why not?”

“Yeah, I don’t have anything better to do.” Simon chimed in. “Following you guys into questionable situations, practically my hobby.”

“I thought your hobby was being a nuisance.” Jonathan sneered. “You can’t come along.”

Crossing her arms and matching his expression, Clary shook her head. “I don’t know what’s going on, except that it has you worked up into a tizzy. But I want Simon there and I’m not moving an inch without him. And you know we don’t have much time before Mom figures out where we are.”

It was true. They had both turned off the phones she had insisted they have but Jocelyn was stubborn and Java Jones was one of their favorite places to go. She had to be awake already and it wouldn’t take her long to check. They done some calculations before leaving and they couldn’t afford to linger long.

“By god, you’re stubborn.” her brother sighed. “Fine, Simon can come along. But it might not be safe and I’m going to need you to keep up and not get killed.”

Clary’s first thought was that this was essentially Jonathan for caring about someone which was rather sweet. The second thought was that, though he could be a drama queen sometimes, Jonathan didn’t seem to be joking about the danger. This entire adventure was getting more worrying by the minute.

“Are we going?” he asked.

Clary and Simon exchanged a look and followed him out of Java Jones.

 

 

 

They ended up in a small New York street, at a bar. The sign was subtle and the building itself was quiet, even hidden, but Clary’s artist’s eye caught the simple lettering.

The Hunter’s Moon.

Simon looked confused.

“Why are we here, at this pub, at noon? On a Wednesday?”

Jonathan blinked. “It’s a werewolf bar. It seemed like a good place to get answers. I cased it out last night but it was too crowded and I got a lot of questions. It seemed better to come early in the day. It should be opening in a few minutes and we can talk to the bartender.”

Later on Clary couldn’t quite remember exactly what she did but she thought it might have involved some dumbstruck nodding. Somehow despite being caught off guard she wasn’t really surprised. It didn’t seem unlikely to her at that moment, she was just rather upset her brother hadn’t told her sooner.

On the other hand Simon didn’t buy it.

“What? Oh god, you’ve lost it. You’ve completely lost it.”

That jolted Clary back into the real world where werewolf bars were a wild idea. She looked from Simon to her brother and then frowned. “Explain.”

“We can take him back to my house.” Simon suggested, “If he’s sick or something. So you don’t have to go home. Your mom just called me, by the way.”

“Ignore her.” Clary ordered. “Jonathan, please. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Look, Clary, you know things have been weird. I know it too. I asked around and these were the answers I got. It sounds like raving, I know, but I promise this is not my nervous breakdown. I know a hawk from a handsaw. Remember when you came home from Pandemonium two weeks ago? Just trust me, please.” There was something in her brother’s ink dark eyes, insistent and almost pleading. He needed her support in this, trusted her and needed her and was willing to tell her what he though was the truth, no matter how mad it sounded. 

Clary thought back to Pandemonium, the girl in the white dress and the dark haired boy following her and how they had dragged a boy into a back room and by the time Clary had gotten off the phone with Jonathan and pushed through the crowd to the room it had just been them and a body on the floor that had evaporated. It had shaken her, even more so when Simon came in and couldn’t see anything and she’d had to claim she had been confused. The beautiful girl in the white dress had rolled her eyes and giggled and Simon hadn’t seen that either and Clary had had to pretend she didn’t and leave with him.

It had shaken her. And there had been a dozen other things as well, lights where they shouldn’t have been and buildings subtly different than she had thought they were. Moments of confusion where she couldn’t quite remember what she was doing but was left with a sudden sense of unease. There had been the pit bull which had attacked the three of them one night, that had upset their mother so much, and which Jonathan had confided to her later looked like a monster to him.

“Clary?” Simon asked, voice creeping high with worry.

“I’m in.” she said. “If only to keep an eye on you. And because I want answers too. Simon, you don’t have to come.”

“No.” Simon said. “I will. I have no idea what’s going on and it kind of worries me, but I’m in too. Besides, werewolves, that's kind of cool even if it is a hallucination.”

“The more the merrier.” Jonathan said, running a hand through his hair, like their mother did sometimes. “Come on, let’s go before it gets any customers.”

“You don’t sound very confident.” Simon said, walking closer to them now. The three of them were clumping up as they approached the door to the bar from the side, like that could protect them.

“I’m only confident when I know I’ll win.”Jonathan said softly. “And now is not one of those times.”

“Defeatism is unattractive and pointless, boys.” Clary said with more bravado than she felt, checked her watch and found it a minute after the hour, just on time. She opened the small door, set down a few stairs and painted red with a dusty rippled glass pane, carefully.

The bar was not at all full, as one would expect from an establishment that officially opened two minutes before. In fact there were only two people there.

One was an older man, a little grizzled and definitely dishevelled looking. He was on one side of the bar. The man with the knife was on the other.

The boy with the knife, really. He was young, and golden blond, attractive enough, and wearing a leather jacket. Under normal circumstances Clary would have been a little bit interested. But he was talking rapidly under his breath to the man on the other side of the counter and wearing a decidedly unsettling expression.

“You have to know. We both know the accords penalize the unaffiliated. You have to know where he is. Just tell me and no one has to get hurt. Especially not you, because let’s face it me getting hurt wasn’t really on the table.”

The older man flinched away from the knife, which shined like it was well taken care of and had a sheen to it that Clary thought reminded her more of silver than steel. Maybe it was just the fact that she had heard the words werewolf bar not five minutes ago. Foreknowledge did good things to one’s hunches.

“I don’t know.” the man insisted and his gaze slid briefly to the trio in the doorway but he looked away quickly and said nothing. The boy, facing away from them, didn’t seem to notice. The door was eerily well oiled and the place where there might have been a bell was empty . “He drops in enough to be legal, but other than that he keeps out of it. I told you about the shop, I don’t know anything else.”

For some reason the boy flinched too. “You have to know.” he insisted, with admirable stubbornness. In a more sarcastic tone he added. “Come on Downworlder. I’m on a schedule. Some of us actually have goals, quotas to meet. Things to do.”

“I don’t know where he would be if he’s not home.” the man repeated steadfastly, with a look that Clary recognized as belonging to someone resigned to something terrible. Clary didn’t know why he wasn’t fighting back, until she spotted the way he was holding his hands, as if he had something in one and was trying to hide it. A weapon maybe, or something clever. Next to her Simon and Jonathan were a stock still and desperately listening as she was and she was glad that at least Simon could see what was happening.

The bartender -or bar owner, either way he clearly worked there- continued, “If you want Luke Garroway you could take it up with the Institute. I’m sure they wouldn’t stop a law abiding Shadowhunter lad in the pursuit of his duty.”

Simon and Clary gasped together, sucking in air like they were drowning. Jonathan stayed silent, though his eyes widened. It didn’t matter, two people making noise in the dust and stillness of the room was enough. The boy spun on his heel. He was even prettier when you could actually see his face, not stunning but with a self assurance not common in teenagers.

His eyes went wide too and he whispered, “Father?” Clary was instantly confused and even more confused when she realized he was looking at Jonathan.

“No.” Clary said, stepping in front of Jonathan, arms held out as if to defend herself and him. She didn’t know how much help it would be but she could try. “Who are you?”

“Jonathan Morgenstern.”” said the boy, now Jonathan and that was too weird even for this situation, enough that Clary had to abruptly christen him other Jonathan. OJ for short, she decided.

Her Jonathan was still shock still behind her but Simon had sidled up next to her in silent support. The bartender behind the bar had backed up to the wall in panic and Clary could see the phone in his hands now. Not a weapon, but maybe he was calling for help. He seemed on the verge of making a run for the door.

“Don’t even think about it.” OJ warned the bartender, brandishing the knife with a professional confidence. He was keeping his eyes on Jonathan, whose own gaze was slowly fading out of shock and into calculation. OJ continued when it became apparent that Clary and the others weren’t going to volunteer anything. “Who are you.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “I’m Jonathan. Fray.”

“Clary Fray.” Clary said firmly, trying to keep it from becoming a Jonathan show. There was no way that would end well.

“Not volunteering personal information to people with knifes.” Simon added.

OJ seemed as lost as they were. It was almost reassuring. “Nice to meet you, not volunteering.” he said finally, equal parts cruel and desperate, as if making jokes were the way he could keep control of the situation. His hand that was not occupied with knife holding was tucked into a pocket, as if holding something. “Are you regulars? The Children of the Moon must be hard pressed if they’ll bite dim witted children.”

“No.” Clary said, trying to keep things simple. Easy answers. “We just dropped in. Why are you looking at my brother like that? How do you know Luke?”

It seemed bizarre that it had turned into question and answer time, but it seemed both parties preferred it to picking a fight, not while they were both still so utterly confused.

How long the truce of mutual befuddlement would continue was up in the air. OJ twirled his knife expertly at the last question, his other hand going to his belt where Clary could see more weapons. “You know Garroway?”

“What do you want with him?” Clary asked again. Simon was making significant faces at the bartender who seemed to be surreptitiously whispering into his phone. Jonathan had taken a few steps back, letting Clary take over. He did that sometimes but not when it came to picking arguments. 

OJ shook his head and muttered something to himself. Based on their previous interactions Clary was prepared to bet it was petty and sardonic. His hand went to his pocket again, as if to reassure himself, before he tilted his head up, arrogant as a young god. Or a seventeen year old with particularly good self esteem, but really, what was the difference? “You need to come with me back to my father.” He informed them superciliously, then added to himself. “Because this is either a trick or he drugged me again.”

Jonathan tilted his head. “To quote my baby sister for the past few minutes, ‘No.’”

He charged and Clary realized why he had backed up, so he could grab a wooden plaque off the wall. As weapons went it wasn’t great, but it did it’s job and blocked OJ’s first knife strike. As the boys struggled Clary grabbed Simon’s shoulder.

“Go get that bartender before he runs off and find out what’s going on. Nicely.” she ordered, before running towards the fight, which was turning in OJ’s favour far too rapidly. That never happened. Jonathan could beat anyone.

Behind her Simon reluctantly went over to the man- werewolf?- still holding the phone like a life line. Like the rest of them he seemed somewhere between stress induced catatonia and pure driven instinct.

On the floor OJ had Jonathan pinned. Clary suspected he wasn't doing half as much damage as he could have. She could work with that.

Clary hadn’t been in a lot of fights. She’d never really had the inclination and even if she had it would have broken her mother’s heart. So she had only the vaguest of ideas what she was doing when she tackled OJ, knocking him off her brother and too a new patch of poorly cleaned floor.

He was taken off guard for only a minute and quickly regained the advantage, twisting her arm around and then getting her on her back, and a knee onto her chest. His hand went for her throat, carefully enough that Clary didn’t think he was going to throttle her, just get another point of restraint. Clary bit him anyways, leaning forward as much as she could, taking advantage of the split second of added hesitation that came with him not trying to actively kill her, and getting her teeth into his forearm.

That got her enough room to wiggle away a little and get a knee free enough to kick him. In and of itself it was just buying time, he was bigger than her and obviously vastly more experienced at violence. Luckily for Clary she only needed enough time for Jonathan to sneak up on him.

And he did, sneaking around the side to unsuccessfully ambush OJ. Unsuccessful because the other boy saw him coming, but there was very little that could be done to defend oneself from a good two hundred pounds of lean seventeen year old, especially since Clary still had him distracted. Together the Frays managed to get OJ wriggling away from them, crab crawling back and leaping to his feet with a dexterity usually only seen in gymnasts.Gymnasts used to getting into bar fights, Clary had to add mentally as she ducked a chair suddenly swung at her.

Even working together she and Jonathan could only do so much. At some point they were going to have to escape or get backup, or risk being taken OJ’s father. In between hiding under a table from carefully placed, carefully non lethal blows Clary had a lot of questions, mostly about OJ’s reaction when they first came in, how big his golden eyes had gotten and how genuinely terrified he had seemed after the initial moments of recognition and then blank confusion had passed.

It was not how she had expected her morning to go. It was not really what anyone expected out of their morning.

She could still hear the struggle above her, wanted to get out and help, but realized the best thing that she could do at the moment was find a weapon, any weapon. She grasped around, under the benches and around the table legs and only looked up when she realized the sounds of the fight had quieted.

A hand, tanned and surprisingly long fingered, pulled her out from under the table. Once she was out Clary could see OJ had somehow managed to tie up Jonathan with something shining and metallic. OJ himself looked ever so slightly apologetic, which was one of the first signs of actual human decency she had seen from him yet. Clary didn’t fight back, not yet. She wasn’t stupid and she kept her shoulders hunched, and her free arm behind her back.

“Right.” OJ said authoritatively. “We’re going now.”

“That is a very sweet non-offer, but no thank you.” Simon said from the doorway which he was blocking as much as he could with his skinny frame. He didn’t exactly look impressive but Clary was touched by the attempt and even more touched by the fact that it distracted OJ enough for her to hit in over the head with the empty vodka bottle she had found under the table. He staggered, and Clary twisted her wrist out of his grip, remembering vaguely a self defense class taught in gym years ago.

Simon moved quickly away from the door to Jonathan, and Clary stood in front of them, holding her glass bottle like a frankly terrible weapon and trying to look menacing enough to keep OJ off their back for a few seconds, until they had numbers again and less of a devastating disadvantage.

The bartender had, she noted absently, disappeared entirely. Good for him, bad for them.

OJ sadly did not seem particularly dissuaded. Simon had Jonathan half untied but he still looked a little dazed.

As OJ approached, taller than she was a good bit and backlit by the muted afternoon light streaming through the windows. He twisted the vodka bottle out of her hand, then grabbed her upper arm, possibly having learned that wrists escaped too easily.

“Hey-” Simon started, only to be cut off by Jonathan’s voice sharper than it had any right to be considering his eyes were still unfocused.

“Let me go of my sister!”

Clary added her own voice to the admittedly slightly pitiful choir of objections. “Hey, Mr. Crazy, we all want to know what’s going on. There is no need for any kidnappings. Just let go of me, apologize for hurting my brother and we’ll figure things out.”

“”I know pretty people aren’t supposed to be clever.” OJ informed her. “But I’m not falling for that. Whatever you are, a demon or a ploy, I don’t trust you and you’re not getting out of this.”:

The light at his back dimmed and Clary heard a new voice, a girl’s voice, and even as she heard it a thick rope of something metallic wrapped around OJ’s arm.

“Turn around.” the girl ordered. “And drop the red head.”

OJ let go of Clary but didn’t turn. Taking advantage of her release, Clary backed up enough to be out of OJ’s reach, and then stood on tiptoes to see the figure in the doorway over his shoulder.

Figures, she realized, the girl and a taller person who was probably male. With the light behind them she couldn’t see any specific features, but something about them seemed eerily familiar. The rope around OJ’s arm, it was a whip, she realized. She squinted to confirm her suspicions. The people in the doorway were the two she had seen in Pandemonium.

It was a dream, it all had to be a dream, but it didn’t feel like one. Then again, dreams rarely did while you were in them.

“Turn around.” the girl repeated. “Now which one of you was talking on the phone? We got the weirdest phone call and in it someone mentioned Morgenstern.”

No one answered. Jonathan still looked out of it and Simon had as little idea of what was going on as Clary did. OJ still hadn’t turned around and again there was genuine confusion and a bit of fear in his eyes, and something softer as well.

“Well then.” the girl said. “You’re all under arrest on the authority of the Clave.”

“Who?” Simon asked. “And we really don’t need to be arrested. We were just passing through and heard something going on.”

“That sounds likely.” said the boy, finally speaking.

The girl stepped forward, a little hesitantly. Clary got the sense that OJ was the only person in the room she was worried about. “Turn around you with the yellow hair. And put your hands in the air.” Close up Clary could see her more clearly, gorgeous as a statue and much more animated, with dark hair pulled up in a loose ponytail. She was wearing a leather jacket and some truly ridiculous heels, the sort that always looked good and that Clary could never have pulled off.

“Turn around! You’re outnumbered and I don’t think you want to get into a fight with all these bystanders around."

OJ squeezed his eyes shut for an instant as if he was expecting a blow, then turned.

The girl’s nostrils flared and her eyebrows arched even as her beautiful dark eyes became almost comically wide. But it was the boy who spoke.

“Jace!”

“What are you doing here?” the girl added. “We haven’t seen you in years! You never wrote, nothing. What’s going on! Why did… we’ve been hearing rumours about Valentine for a month now and now you… What is happening?” The last question sounded like an order. The girl still held herself the way she had in Pandemonium, like a princess, if a slightly startled one. Behind her the boy stepped out of the doorway, took the few steps to stand next to her.

“Isabelle. He’s a family friend. There must be a mistake.”

They were all totally ignoring Clary and the boys now, which suited her just fine. She went to stand with Jonathan, Simon being occupied edging up the wall to the door in what Clary thought was a clever tactical maneuver, as Isabelle’s eyes narrowed.

“That was years ago. Now I want to know why Jace has decided to take on the name of a dead monster who everyone refuses to talk about so he could harass... whatever those three are.”

OJ moved fast, got a knife in his free hand and sliced the whip to free his hand, made a run for the door. The dark haired boy tried to cut him off and succeeded in forcing him several feet back and to the side, but OJ grabbed one of the not that low hanging beams on the ceiling over the bar and swung over his head.

The door slammed and Simon was standing in front of it again. OJ grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to bodily move him aside, but ended up falling to his knees as Isabelle’s slightly shortened whip curled around his ankles and yanked him off his feet. He grabbed at the silver length and pulled it out of her hands, detangled himself fast. Jonathan surged forward and Clary looked around the floor, but both of them were beaten by the dark haired boy who grabbed OJ from behind, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and pinning him. OJ tried to yank free for a minute, struggling like a trapped lion, then finally quieted.

“Jace, can we talk about this? Hodge heard the phone call and as soon as someone, as soon as you, said Jonathan Morgenstern, he told us to go right away. We ran here. What’s-” the boy was cut off as OJ- Jace- threw his head back and caught him a blow to the chin, hard enough that Clary winced in sympathy even as she scrabbled at the floor boards.

OJ dove forward, rolled and made another rush at the door, but Isabelle was blocking it with a knife in both hands and Jonathan tried to kick his knees out from under him. OJ moved, too fast to be human, fast enough that Simon looked momentarily delighted. Jonathan made another grab for the Other Jonathan as the dark haired boy pulled himself to his feet, and tried to help box OJ in.

It was a moderately successful attempt, especially once Isabelle started helping. Clary didn’t think she’d actually have to do anything when OJ ducked under Jonathan’s arm and rolled under the table. He gave Clary a grin that was probably meant to be charming and went for a chair leg. She didn’t know what he was planning on doing and didn’t find out because that was when she finally found her empty bottle and smacked him over the head with it.

The bottle shattered, leaving glass in OJ’s hair and several cuts that she hoped were superficial on his scalp. He went out and Isabelle and the dark haired boy, who had to be her brother, sprinted over the short distance shooed Clary away. Isabelle gave her an approving and dazzling smile as she did so.

Together the two pulled OJ out from under the table, checked his head and tied him up. Once that was done Isabelle straightened and looked at the three of them, Clary hovering a short distance away, Jonathan next to her leaning on a table, and Simon, still blocking the doorway like a very baffled museum guard.

“You all handled this very well for people who claimed to have no idea what’s going on.” she said mildly. Her brother was still fussing over OJ. Clary found it unfair considering that he had been trying to hurt them just a few minutes ago.

“Believe me, I am completely clueless.” Simon said and Clary nodded her agreement.

“You’re not Downworlders?” Isabelle asked, as if she already knew the answer but still needed to get it, like a policeman or a lawyer covering all the bases.

“I don’t think so?” Clary answered.

“Ja- Jonathan,” Isabelle caught herself, “Seemed very interested in you.”

“We noticed.” Jonathan, Clary’s Jonathan, replied. “Who are you people?”

The siblings exchanged a glance before the boy answered. “Shadowhunters. Protectors of the Law. You’re already pretty involved so I suppose it's legal to tell you.”

“So you’re like magical policemen?” Simon said. “My friend Matt suggested a game campaign with that plot once. The rest of us vetoed it because it sounded too cliche.”

Clary herself thought it would make a good manga, there was a lot of leather of the Lightwoods and when she looked she could see strange tattoos, almost familiar in their design, covering their arms, the edge of one visible on Jace’s neck and his hand. With a good artist it could be a best seller.

“Yes to the first. I have no idea what you said after that.” the girl answered with a smile that was just a little too tight around the edges. Something had upset her, and Clary was prepared to bet it was Jace. She didn’t seem to want to show it though.

There was an awkward silence after that, as Isabelle’s brother continued tying up Jace with far too much rope. On the other hand he had jumped a good five feet to reach the ceiling beam above the bar. It was possible all the rope was justified. The quiet was broken by the sound of Simon’s phone ringing.

He dug it out of his pockets, fumbled with it, then finally checked the screen. He bit his lip and looked at Clary and Jonathan. “It’s your mom.”

Thirty minutes ago Clary would have told him to hang up, now the idea seemed unthinkable. Jonathan was already jumping over the bar and Clary followed him. “Give it to me.” she asked Simon, and then added a “Please.”

He handed her the phone carefully, and Jonathan stooped to squeeze next to her as she pressed the talk button and held the speaker against her ear, just far enough away to give her some space if her mother started yelling and enough that Jonathan could hear. Isabelle’s lips thinned but she didn’t stop them.

“Clary, Jonathan?” Jocelyn’s voice came over the line. She sounded frantic, which was not exactly unexpected. Clary felt suddenly guilty.

“We’re here, Mom.” Clary said.

“Oh, thank god. Are you both safe?”

Clary looked at the scene in front of them, and herself and her brother and didn’t lie. “Yes, we’re technically fine. Could be worse. But things are really weird, Mo-”

Jocelyn cut her off. “And you’re with Simon?”

“Yes. He’s right here. This is his phone, Mom.” Clary said, feeling like the panic was catching. Their mother hadn’t chewed them out yet, hadn’t even acknowledged that they had snuck out of the house at the crack of dawn to avoid her.

“I called Elaine earlier, you can stay at her house for a few days. Clary, Jonathan, you need to listen to me. Do not come home. Go to Simon’s and stay there. Watch movies, play games, just stay inside. Don’t trust anyone.”

“Is something wrong?” Jonathan asked in a low voice.

“Yes.” Jocelyn said frankly. “I sent Luke to do something. You need to call him right away. Tell him Valentine found me, tell him to stay safe and not to come back to the apartment either. Tell him you two are staying with Simon for now. He’ll know what to do. Okay?”

“Yes, but Mom, what’s going on?” Clary said. “What’s happening!”

Jocelyn was using the voice she had when they were little and hysterical, intentionally soothing and soft. “Look, I love you both so much. Don’t trust anyone but Luke. I have to go now. Take care of each other.” There was a short burst of static and the line went dead. Clary could feel her knees buckling and Jonathan supporting her as much as she was supporting him, Simon’s hand on her shoulder. The urge to run away was strong but it also seemed likely to make Isabelle run after her with a weapon. And her mother’s line about not trusting anyone but Luke, had implications.

Isabelle looked over at them curiously. “What was that about?”

“Just some trouble at home.” Jonathan lied smoothly, seemingly unaffected but when Simon put a hand on his shoulder as well he didn’t shake it off like he usually would have.

Isabelle seemed to buy it. “When we get back to the Institute we’ll have our tutor call your parents. He’s good at smoothing things over.” She smiled again, a stunning affair with equal parts long lashes and perfectly glossed lips. Aimed at Jonathan it was less approving and more coy, Clary noted.

“Smoothing things over is a useful skill set.” Jonathan noted, returning the smile with twice the smirk in it. “I myself have found it useful in preventing some nascent scandals.”

“It’s never really been my talent.” Isabelle purred. “Scandals all the time, subsequently.”

Her brother who seemed have stripped OJ of all his many weapons and was now trying to bag them up, rolled his eyes with equal measures of fondness, exasperation, and general worry. Clary could agree with the sentiment. There were times and places for flirting and this was not one of them. She pulled Simon’s hand off her shoulder so she could hold it, partially for comfort and partially to keep him close.

Jonathan looked back at her and Clary could read his face like a book. Don’t trust anyone, their mother had said, and here were two weapon wielding teenagers prepared to take them away. Whatever their mother had been talking about, they needed to get away, they needed to find her, and sadly they needed to ditch the dark haired siblings, even if they were their best chance at getting answers.

Sadly they weren’t telepathic so Clary couldn’t tell exactly what he was thinking, but she had a good idea because she was thinking along the same lines. Supernatural things were in the world, werewolves apparently and definitely these Shadowhunter people. One of them was OJ, whose full name was Jonathan Morgenstern. Isabelle had mentioned a Valentine Morgenstern. OJ had mentioned his father. Mom had said Valentine had found her.

Coincidence, or fate, they’d stumbled into a bar with someone who’s dad knew their mom. Clary still didn’t want to think about how their mother was involved in the whole thing, but either way OJ clearly had something to do with it.

Should I? Jonathan mouthed at her. She didn’t know what he was planning, but he still wanted approval, someone to tell him things were acceptable and not going to end like the Frog Dissection Incident.

Clary gave a tiny nod and then pulled Simon behind her, stepped back to the door a bit.

“Are you okay?” Simon asked. “Your mom, what’s happening?”

“I don’t know.” Clary whispered back, finally starting to feel tears welling up in her eyes as she really thought about her situation. “On all counts. But I intend to find out.” She lowered her voice even more until there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell even Isabelle would be able to hear, and tilted her head into Simon’s shoulder. “Be ready to run.”

Simon, always a champ, didn’t question it. At least not out loud. His face suggested several questions including at least one, ‘Dear God, why me?’

In front of them Jonathan gave Isabelle his mildest smile, the one that could convince anyone he was harmless even if the illusion never lasted long, and wandered innocently over to Isabelle’s brother, who was still bagging up OJ’s weapons on the floor. There were a lot of knives involved.

“Don’t touch that.” Isabelle’s brother, whose name Clary was really going to have to learn at some point soon- said gruffly. He looked shaken too, in a cranky sort of way. Clary didn’t know how Jonathan could look so unruffled when they had just been attacked, when God knew what was happening to their mother. But there he was, smiling away absently, looking less upset than tall dark and grumpy who probably had much less on his plate.

“Sorry.” Jonathan said. “Is there anything we can do to help? I don’t know what’s going on.”

“You’ve mentioned that.” the other boy interjected, suspicion written all over his face.

“But it would probably be better for everyone if we got out of here as soon as possible. Especially my sister.” Jonathan continued. He was kneeling on the floor and Clary knew him well enough to know to know this was when she started a distraction. A few muffled sobs weren’t hard, she was already halfway to crying. Simon patted her back helpfully, even though he looked close to hysterics as well.

Isabelle’s look was far too pitying for Clary’s taste, but it got both siblings’ eyes off Jonathan for a moment.

“We should move Jace.” Isabelle’s brother told her in an undertone. Isabelle nodded, biting her lip, worry clear on her face.

“I can carry him.” Jonathan offered. “You two should probably have your hands free, in case more bad guys come.” He was laying it on ridiculously thick, batting his lashes haplessly. Playing the victim got boring for him quickly.

Even Isabelle shot him a glance at that, and to Clary’s surprise it was her brother who ended up nodding.

“Be careful.” he warned. “And if he start to wake up, just drop him.”

“Alec!” Isabelle hissed.

Alec, apparently, looked defensive. “We’re two streets away from werewolf territory and we need to get him back a soon as possible and call the Clave.”

“But if he’s really Valentine’s son, the Clave will be furious. Right before the Accords too…”

“I know.” Alec said. “But they need to know. We’ll keep him safe and try to get him to talk. He not much older than you, and we can testify on his behalf. They’ll go easy on him.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

“We don’t know anything.” Isabelle countered. “Was anything he told us all those years ago true? And even if it is we haven’t seen him since we were all children. They won’t trust us.”

“We’ll protect him.” Alec promised. “As much as we can. But what else can we do?”

In the meantime Jonathan had hefted up Jace, or OJ, she was really going to have to pick a name and stick with it, and taken him back to the door. Once he was there he gave Clary a questioning look. She reminded herself to tell him later that she couldn’t read his mind, and then nodded because they needed a little trademarked Jonathan Fray inappropriateness right then.

Jonathan grinned and moved Jace so he was upright, toes skimming the ground as Jonathan held him up against his own body. Then he pulled a knife out of his sweater, one he must have snatched out of Alec’s neat piles earlier, and held it to Jace’s throat.

“Let me solve this for you. We’re going to take him and leave here. Without you.” he declared.

It was not what Clary had expected, but screw it, it worked. As long as Jonathan didn’t actually try to injure Jace she wasn‘t complaining.

Isabelle took a step forward and stopped herself abruptly when Jonathan brandished the knife. It didn’t look as smooth as when Jace or Isabelle had done it, but there was still a certain thoughtless bravado.

Alec had the look of a man who made a terrible mistake and was going to blame himself for it for the rest of forever. It was enough to almost make Clary tell Jonathan to put Jace down.

“Drop him.” Alec ordered, and Clary’s pity for him disappeared.

“No.” Jonathan said. “You two go sit down in those chairs.”

“You’re interfering with the Accords.” Alec warned. “I realize you have no idea what that means but it’s serious. Just put Jace down.”

“Simon, open the door, go outside and hail a cab.” Clary ordered. “Tell them we’re carrying our drunk brother, or something.” Simon whispered something to Jonathan before he stepped toward the door.

Isabelle hefted a blade and sneered when Jonathan flicked the knife again. “You wouldn’t.” she said.

“Try me.” Jonathan replied.

If Isabelle called the bluff Clary wasn’t sure what would happen. She hoped Jonathan wouldn’t actually kill anyone, if not for moral reasons then because if he did Isabelle and Alec would have no reason not to hurt them. Luckily something in Jonathan’s dark eyes must have warned the girl off because she grabbed Alec’s arm and pulled him into a chair over his protests.

Simon left, and both the (conscious) Shadowhunters began issuing warnings.

“You have no idea what you’re doing.” Isabelle said icily.

“You’re making a terrible mistake.” Alec added.

Clary grabbed Jonathan’s knife wielding arm and helped him up the steps backwards, so he didn’t have to take his eyes off Isabelle and Alec. As a bonus it gave her what felt like a little more control over the life and death portion of the situation. Simon was outside with a cab, they had gotten lucky it seemed, and Clary let the door drop and then sprinted to the cab, Jonathan close on her heels. The poor cab driver looked seriously worried and Simon was lying breathlessly as the Fray’s and their limp, hogtied new friend crashed into the back seat.

“He’s our friend, we think he might have gotten involved in drugs or something. Well, he’s my friend, he’s their brother. That’s why they’re carrying him. Anyway, we’re rescuing him. From a drugs and bondage scene he got into. Dangerous. But not too dangerous, not dangerous enough that you should kick us out of your cab. We’re just taking him home, as friends, and brothers do.”

“Floor it!” Clary yelled as she saw a head of dark hair appearing at the bar door.

Reluctantly their cab driver veered into the street. The traffic was going to get them caught, Clary realized, and her heart fell. Car chases did not work well on New York streets. They were going to get caught by leather wearing tattooed magical cop teens whose friend/prisoner they had just kidnapped.

“Take that left.” Simon suggested.

“Please!” Clary said. “If you can go fast, we really don’t want to get caught by the weirdos he was involved with.” She wasn’t a good liar, never had been, but it was highly possible that she looked desperate enough for him to buy it. She knew there were tear tracks on her cheeks and possibly blood.

The driver made a sharp left and several dangerous passes until they hit a quiet street. Clary couldn’t see either Isabelle or Alec behind them.

Out of danger they could finally start to crack. Clary could feel tears trickling down her cheeks again and Simon started to take overly deep breaths, as if the alternative was hyperventilating. Jonathan was sitting awkwardly, possibly because Jace was on his lap, and running a hand through his hair.

“That was….” Simon started.

“Yeah.” Clary finished, not really wanting to get into details in the cab.

He swallowed. “Where are we going?”

“Your house.” Jonathan said. “They heard our names but not yours. We have to go to your house.” Visibly remembering his manners he added, “If that’s fine with you?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Simon said. “I mean…. you’re my friends. All that, I can’t leave you with that. We’ll figure out what’s happening together.”

“ Our mom.” Clary wiped her cheeks and only succeeded in smearing the tears over more of her face. “We need to go find her. Check the apartment, whatever.”

“Once we get him somewhere safe.” Jonathan, jerked his chin at Jace. His hand was still in his hair, not moving just twisted up in the fine blonde strands, too tightly to be comfortable.

Clary nodded and leaned into her brother. They clung to each other, like they had when they were younger and Jonathan was in trouble or she was scared of monster in her closet or they were both watching scary movies they shouldn’t have been. Clary couldn’t imagine being an only child. It was like imagining the sky as green or a world without air, technically possible but ridiculous and terrifying in equal parts.

 

 

 

Jonathan Morgenstern woke up tied to a bed. It was the first thing he noticed, actually. Wrists and ankles secured, something soft under him, it didn’t take a brilliant mind to figure it out. Which was fortunate because he couldn’t think much past his blinding headache. Despite his training he tried to reach for his stele, only to be pulled up short. There were blurry voices above him whispering something along the lines of “Shh, he’s waking up.” Jonathan stilled and tried to think.

The blond boy who looked just like his father was the first thing that came to mind as he collected his wits. The hair, the face, the way he stood, all of it was Valentine’s. Even the eyes, up to a certain point. His father had dark eyes but they were alive and welcoming, full of charisma. The boy’s eye had been colder.

He had called himself Jonathan.

Jonathan’s first thought had been that it was a trick, a demon trap or a dream conjured up by warlocks or faeries. But his Sensor had barely read anything and none of the little tricks his father had told him, picking out details, retracing the last five minutes before the event, biting his own tongue, had shown anything out of the ordinary.

Then there had been a fight. The fake Jonathan had fought like a mundane but better, faster, just enough to give him an idea that something wasn’t right. And the pretty red haired girl and the boy with glasses and a nervous smile hadn’t screamed like mundanes did.

Then the Lightwoods had come in and what had been a nightmare had become a worst case scenario.

Back when he had thought he was still Jonathan Wayland there had been a problem, his father had needed to go away for a while and had faked his death. It had been necessary, Jonathan knew that, for everyone’s safety and for the cause. Jonathan had gone to the Lightwoods for a year and half. It had been the first time he had seen Shadowhunter children his own age. Mrs. Lightwood had called him Jace and Mr. Lightwood had given him strange looks and patted him on the shoulder and called him a brave little soldier. Alec had trained with him and Isabelle had tagged along and taught him about stealing cookies and how to play gently with baby Max.

The Lightwoods had been ridiculously gentle with their children. They hadn’t hit him once.

It had been like an extended vacation, the last hurrah of childhood before word came down that Jonathan Wayland’s mother’s family wanted him. Jonathan had cried when he left and then cried again when he found his father waiting for him, alive and whole and ready to really explain things. Ready for Jonathan to be his proper son, no longer a child.

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard in whispers in his childhood, that the Clave was weak and Downworlders needed to be kept under control. Even the Lightwoods hadn’t liked Downworlders, had been polite but never friendly. Isabelle and Alec had been friendly enough with everyone but they hadn’t been brought up right, away from Idris and home. Growing up just meant making theory into reality, being his father’s strong lieutenant as he looked for the Mortal Cup.

Jonathan knew a woman had it, because he heard Blackwell and Pangborn whispering about her sometimes.

He didn’t question things though, not when his father had taught him a dozen ways to kill a man, and not when he had been told to go and retrieve a werewolf named Luke Garroway from a bookstore.

He’d had questions when Garroway hadn’t been at his bookstore all morning, but that wasn’t insubordination; it was thinking laterally and showing initiative. So he had gone to the nearest werewolf bar so he wouldn’t show up empty handed to his father at the end of the day and gotten himself caught by the Institute, by people he had once called friends.

He really couldn’t keep his eyes shut much longer, no matter how much he wanted to.

When he opened them and got a fix on his surroundings he found he was not in any of the rooms he recognized from the Institute. It was too small and messy, with white walls covered in posters and a desk and a dresser and a closet. Wrong-Jonathan and the red head, Clary like the sage, and the boy with glasses were standing on the far side of the room, talking quietly. They all looked upset to one degree or another.

Glasses nudged Clary. “He’s awake.”

She looked like she had been crying, and she was wearing different clothes than he had been earlier, a too big boy’s shirt and shorts. He knew instantly that he wasn’t in the Institute, because Isabelle would never have let anyone walk around like that.

Wrong-Jonathan was next to her, looking equally dishevelled and badly dressed, and he took a step forward before she grabbed his hand and whispered something, then shoved him at the desk chair. Once he was seated she walked to the end of the bed, keeping enough space between herself and Jonathan to be safe. He almost had to admire her for that, and would have if he couldn’t feel bandaids hastily applied to his face because of her choice of glass based weaponry.

“You’re up.” she said.

“And you’re just a little observant ball of sunshine. I’m not up because someone tied me to a bed. If this is not a girl’s bed I’m going to file a complaint.” Running his mouth was easy, it threw other people off and made him feel like he had some control.

It worked on almost everyone but his father, including apparently the girl. She pursed her lips. “It’s Simon’s bed.” Simon had to be the one with the glasses. Unfortunate but not as bad as it could have been. Certainly the second best of the three choice, creeping into first the more Clary glared. She continued, “Where’s our mother?”

“No idea?”

Simon seemed to be occupied soothing Wrong-Jonathan who looked about at the end of his rope. Clary wasn’t much better, she balled her fists and leaned against the end of the bed. “Is your father’s name Valentine Morgenstern?”

Jonathan nodded and wondered if these mundane children were better informed than he gave them credit for. Something was clearly going on, seeing as they had been able to hold their own against him for so long, even with him trying not to hurt them but they had genuinely appeared clueless.

“Our mom called us and said someone named Valentine was after her.” Clary went on. “And when we went to the apartment it was trashed. There was slime all over the place and this monster attacked us. I had to beat it up with a broom while Jonathan knifed it.” She took a deep shuddering breath. “We want to know what’s going on.”

Jonathan’s first thought was that it explained the new clothes. His second thought was that a pair of untrained teenagers had just managed to kill what was probably a demon. He tugged at the restraints futilely. They looked to be of Shadowhunter make, standard issue rope, which just caused more questions.

“I don’t know anything about your mother.”

“Her name is Jocelyn.” Clary offered.

“Still nothing.” Jonathan said. “Sorry. My father doesn’t tell me anything.”

“How do we know you’re not lying?” Wrong-Jonathan asked and his sister got a steely glint in her eyes. Jonathan felt the need to stop that train before it got too far.

“I’m not good at lying. But if it helps, I swear on the Angel I know nothing about a Jocelyn. I’ve never heard the name in any context outside a general, ‘Ah, yes, that’s a name alright’ one before.” He realized too late they probably wouldn’t know what that oath meant, but it seemed to soothe them anyway.

Clary crossed her arms. “What about Luke? You were talking about him.”

“Garroway? The werewolf?”

“He’s a werewolf?” SImon yelped and Clary shook her head empathetically.

“You’re wrong. He’s like a member of our family. If he was a werewolf we would know.”

Jonathan shrugged as much as was possible while tied to a bed. He was rapidly realizing it wa a somewhat vulnerable position. “Have you ever seen him on a full moon?”

“It’s not possible.” Clary repeated.

“Cats do hate him.” Wrong-Jonathan said. “But I still think he’s lying. Clary, come on, whatever is going on he’s not on our side.”

“We can shelve the werewolf issue if it’s making you uncomfortable.” Jonathan said, quite kindly, he thought.

It was possible the others didn’t see it that way because they all glared at him. Jonathan was rapidly realizing how terrible this entire situation was and he repeated to himself something his father used to say during training. _This horror will grow mild, this darkness light._

Admittedly it was an easier mantra to repeat when left in the dark woods of Idris than when trapped in a light filled mundane bedroom.

Clary seemed to have recovered because she cleared her throat until Jonathan looked at her. Her eyes were strangely kind.

“Except I don’t think he knows what’s happening either. He was so confused seeing you, Jonathan. And he really didn’t know what happened to Mom. Maybe he can help us.”

“No.” Jonathan said and was surprised to find Simon and Wrong-Jonathan making accompanying noises of dissent.

“Look, Jace-” Clary began.

“Not my name.”

“I’m not calling you Jonathan. It’s too weird. And Jace is better than the other options on the plate. Besides, you want to know what’s happening as much as we do. I’m not suggesting anything terrible, just an exchange of information.”

Jonathan smirked. “I have a lot more information than you do.”

“And we have you tied to a bed.” Wrong-Jonathan countered.

“So talk to us.” Simon said. “You attacked my friends, possibly kidnapped their mother and apparently there is magic everywhere and Luke whose house I stayed at for most of my childhood is a werewolf. The least you can do is go on a villainous monologue if you refuse to switch sides entirely.”

Jonathan considered his predicament.

“I’ll talk to you if you’ll tell me why you look like my father.”

“Deal.” Clary said, before anyone else could talk. Blondie might have been the fighter, but it was clear that the little girl in front of him was calling all the real shots in the group. She looked like a woman on a mission. “Well, we don’t actually know but we can figure it out. We are going to figure it out.”

“Together with the power of friendship?”

Wrong-Jonathan crossed his ankles, prim as Father could be but ever so slightly different, more mocking, and smiled beatifically. “No, but I have a knife.”

“Beautiful.” Jonathan’s neck was starting to kill him from the odd angle he had to crane it at. “Go team!”

There was a distinct lack of enthusiasm from everyone else, but despite being tied to a bed, Jonathan was starting to feel like things might finally make sense. Sure, the Lightwoods would be after them, and his father and all his plans, and they had no resources and Jonathan was out of weapons, but answers were nigh

“This sounds like a terrible adventure we are embarking on.” Simon observed. He was really starting to grow on Jonathan.

Clary grabbed her brother’s hand and pulled him off his desk chair. “Doesn’t matter, we’re embarking.”

They made quite a pair, the Frays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so information dump time. This AU would theoretically get really complicated. Jocelyn is kidnapped by Valentine per usual. Luke however is looking for Magnus and ends up staying at his house briefly because Magnus isn’t charitable but he’ll hide people if it upsets genocidal maniacs. Luke thinks Jonathan and Clary are at Simon’s and refuses to get in contact with them so they’ll be safe which backfires since they have Valentine’s kid locked in a closet. Jace is not a happy prisoner at first but eventually he starts getting suspicious about Valentine too and eventually he’s like officially a prisoner but he could get out if he wanted to. As Clary, Jonathan, and Simon try to figure things out they go some weird places, like they Google the real Jonathan Clark and go visit his parents, Jonathan’s old ballet teacher helps them do a DNA test with Jace, ect. Assisting them are Simon’s friends, the band members, Jaida, Jacob, Maureen and Vicki, because they don’t really know the no telling mundanes rule at first and when they do they choose to disregard it. 
> 
> So they have an entire team of New York school kids running around for like a week, taking notes and generally screwing up the Downworld and finally Luke catches on and tries to talk to Clary and Jonathan but they run away and then they get caught by Valentine and there is a whole confrontation, join me on the dark side affair. Meanwhile the Lightwood kids are desperately searching for them but Valentine got to Hodge per canon so they are being thwarted at every turn by their own mentor until Jace turns up and gets them to help rescue Clary and Jonathan. 
> 
> All this happens within a fortnight, possibly less. I have little idea what happens after that, except that Jace and Alec end up becoming parabatai in a shotgun ceremony/emergency situation literally a few days or hours before Alec’s eighteenth birthday. I’d need to do my research but I think there’s that story about him turning eighteen when he was dating Magnus so there’s room. Simon becomes a vampire but then kind of ends up working with Camille for a while after she kidnaps him. Gabriel the pack leader Luke killed in City of Bones to get the were wolfs stays alive and maybe has romance with Amatis? The demons blood thing eventually comes out and ends with Jonathan sobbing in the rain and then Clary and Simon pull Jonathan inside and make him hot chocolate and they watch High School Musical 2, just out on DVD. Isabelle and Jonathan have a brief fling that ends badly. Clary makes out with Maia at one point. I have no idea what else happens romance wise except that Alec and Magnus end up together because I like them. The other final pairing is Jonathan and Mark Blackthorn because it involves delicately pretty blonds with questionable bloodline and younger siblings who they love and it made sense at the time. It is the greatest story I will never write and I love it.


End file.
